Begging for Forgiveness
by Freezing Rain
Summary: Konoha has fallen and as the last survivor Kakashi learns an awful truth about the past. Determined to make things right, he's given an opportunity to do so by the person he wants most to forgive him. Starting over, he hopes that he'll be able to create a better future for everyone. Time travel. Not Yaoi. Fixed chapter 1.
1. Learning the Truth

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, if I did then I would kill off Sakura and Sasuke relatively early in the series and Shikamaru would definitely be focused on as much as, or more than, Naruto.

As I said on the first version of this chapter, this is my first fanfiction and feedback is welcome, especially constructive criticism. Once again, if it's something like "this story sucks" please explain to me why you feel that way.

I've rewritten this chapter due to a few reviews that found the point-of-view changes to be too similar. Everything's still the same except for the overlap now so you don't have to re-read it, nothing's changed.

Beta-ed by ECDL.

* * *

**Kakashi's POV**

"You alright Kakashi-teme? You look like you've seen a ghost" the smirk was so uncharacteristic on his former teammate's face that Kakashi immediately opened his mouth to attempt to deny the man's identity.

He wasn't given a chance as the man thrust his palm into Kakashi's chest and threw Kakashi off his feet.

The two were in the middle of the fallen Konoha; it had been destroyed after two weeks of non-stop fighting between Konoha along with a few of their allies against the remains of the Akatsuki.

Kakashi was one of the few left alive, and the last one that could still fight, having left the village nearly a month before in an attempt to recruit more villages to help them. He was one of the few that could do it.

Usually they would send a messenger of lower rank and ability since they needed the stronger ninja to help fight, but with all of the fighting outside of the village they were afraid that the messenger wouldn't survive long enough to reach the other villages.

As soon as he'd heard of the Akatsuki nearing the village though, he'd started to race back, having nothing to show for his efforts. The other village's he'd visited had either already fallen, or didn't have the ninja to spare as they too sought to protect their homes.

When he'd returned to Konoha he'd been too late. Most of the Akatsuki had fallen, but so had Konoha.

He had been cautiously looking around the village, searching for injured so that they could escape to somewhere safer, when he'd run into the orange masked ninja.

At first he had assumed the man was Uchiha Madara, as all of their intel had pointed towards. It wasn't impossible. The man had such a reputation that even though he should have died by now, there was a huge possibility that he could have stayed alive through one technique or the other.

Only after Kakashi had broken the mask when the man had been distracted by his ninken did Kakashi see who really had been the cause of all the destruction and war that had gone on for the past several years.

Despite the damage to his face, the right half showing the extensive scarring from when Obito had been crushed and the rinnegan in his right eye, there was no mistaking his teammate for anyone else and any denial was just wishful thinking on his part.

He couldn't believe Obito could have done something like this, but really didn't have much time to think past that as he was still in a lot of danger.

He was injured pretty heavily, and while he'd been able to remove the mask, that was pretty much all he'd accomplished in his attacks. The other man wasn't even sweating and his breathing showed that he wasn't taxing himself in the least as he fought.

They were currently at the point where the marketplace met the civilian district, and most of the houses in the area had been decimated. Wood from the houses, broken up furniture, and bodies littered the streets around them. The air carried the distinct scent of burning hair and flesh.

Kakashi winced as Obito's strike broke a couple of his ribs and he landed hard on his back in a pile of broken up wood. He felt a few pieces puncture his clothing and then enter his body painfully.

He cried out and tried to rise but before he could get himself to a better stance the man's foot was on his chest, keeping him pinned to the ground. The pain from his ribs kept him from moving, and he marveled at the fact that his lungs hadn't been punctured yet.

Before he could react his mask was torn from his face.

"Hmm, that's it? I was expecting you were either extremely ugly, or extremely attractive, with the way you refused to show your face" the man shook his head and shrugged, throwing the mask aside, kunai moving to Kakashi's throat.

"No matter, I'd like an apology from you now. I know it won't matter much in the long run, nothing will change and I'll still kill you, but at least let me hear it from you, Kakashi-teme" he requested, pressing down with the weapon and drawing blood from the copy nin's throat.

"Obito" he coughed out.

"Yes, I suppose that was my name, though it doesn't matter much anymore. I'm surprised that you picked now of all times to speak unnecessary words, all I want is an apology" he mused, smirking at his fallen former teammate.

Kakashi coughed a bit more and Obito pulled back the weapon just a bit to allow him to speak, probably so that he wouldn't kill him before getting his response. From his tone earlier he probably also wanted to continue to play with Kakashi more.

"I'm sorry that I couldn't save you, and that I left you behind. I'm so so-" the weapon pressed down harder than before and Obito's face morphed into a snarl of rage, his mismatched eyes flashing angrily.

"You think this is about me? You think I'm doing all of this because of some revenge for something you have no control over? I never blamed you for that. What I cannot forgive is you letting her die" he growled, pulling back the kunai and striking Kakashi's temple with the butt of the weapon. Kakashi's vision spotted at the blow and he fought to stay conscious.

"Who?" Kakashi asked dazedly as he tried to stay focused on the situation at hand.

"Who? WHO!?" Obito shouted, shifting and stomping on Kakashi's right hand, they both heard the crunch as several of his bones broke and he bit back a cry. A weak whimper still escaped.

Obito removed his foot and dropped down, placing his left knee on Kakashi's chest, along with a great deal of weight.

Kakashi exhaled sharply at the pain caused by his broken ribs and other various injuries. Try as he might he could not draw in a breath and he doubted his lungs were still intact.

That didn't matter much, he would die relatively quickly after Obito had finished whatever he had planned. Kakashi couldn't hope to put up any sort of fight against him.

"Our teammate! You promised me you'd protect her! You should have died in her place! Without Rin this world should not exist!" he growled and then threw himself backwards off of Kakashi who tried to catch his breath.

"You know what you bastard, you get to be in the center of my greatest achievement. Witness the end of this hell" Obito's sharingan sprang to life in the mangekyou form and he started through his hand seals.

Kakashi frowned, pushing himself up as much as he dared with his injuries, struggling with the nearly impossible task. His lungs weren't working properly, but he figured they hadn't been punctured since he hadn't drowned yet.

Finally he gave up on his futile struggled and focused on the Uchiha, "Obito, stop. You can't do this. Rin's alive" he cried.

His voice was extremely forced, as it became more and more difficult to draw a breath. He slowly allowed himself to fall back, trying to relieve the pressure on his body as much as he could to prolong his life long enough to give Obito the truth.

Obito glared at him, "You'd even lie about Rin's memory to save yourself. That's pathetic" he spat at the copy nin in anger.

Kakashi shook his head, "No, you don't understand. That's not the full story. Sensei and I faked Rin's death to protect her. She was in danger, your clan figured out that she was the one who transplanted your eye. They thought that she'd learned the secret of your bloodline, they wanted her dead. She's been living in Vegetable ever since. She sent me a letter just a month ago" he explained hurriedly through gasps as he tried to breath inward, only succeeding in expelling more oxygen. He figured he would die in another minute.

* * *

**Obito's POV**

Obito slowed in his hand seals after Kakashi's explanation, staring at the silver-haired nin.

Faked her death? Rin was still alive?

That seemed too good to be true, then the rest of the words hit him. She had been in Vegetable?

"E-Excuse me?" he asked shakily, unsure if he wanted to hear this or not. If Kakashi was telling the truth, well, he wasn't sure that he could live with the implications.

Kakashi nodded from where he lay on the ground looking at Obito cautiously, "She's still alive" he gasped out, "and she's just fine. She runs the hospita-" he abruptly stopped speaking, beginning to cough.

"No. You're lying. You have to be" Obito had stopped forming seals and was staring at Kakashi in horror.

It couldn't be true. If it was then what had he done?

Kakashi shook his head weakly in disagreement with Obito's words, but didn't say anything more.

Seeing his old teammate was starting to fade out of consciousness, Obito moved to Kakashi's side, starting to heal the man's lungs and ribs enough for him to be able to breathe.

He needed to know what Kakashi was talking about, if he was telling the truth or just lying to him. While he hoped that he was being lied to, he couldn't shake the feeling that Kakashi was being completely truthful.

"She sent me a picture. She's adopted several children there. She looks almost like she did when she left, a bit older, and she grew out her hair. She had to dye it and she picked black in memory of you…" Obito didn't hear the rest of Kakashi's tired explanation.

The woman that ran the hospital? Black hair? The marks on her face had matched Rin's and he'd ordered her death because she had reminded him so much of her. She had been alive this entire time? Kakashi hadn't broken his promise? Obito had been the one that had killed her?

"No, no, no, no, no, no, No, NO, NO, NO" he screamed.

This wasn't how things were supposed to turn out. He was supposed to complete the technique, go back and see Rin.

He would destroy Kakashi, let everyone know what kind of person he was, how he only cared about himself.

Only with this information it told him a completely different story.

Kakashi hadn't broken his promise. He had done everything he could to take care of Rin it seemed.

"Obito?" Kakashi broke him out of his shock.

"You have to be lying. She died and she wasn't in Vegetable. Tell me she wasn't in Vegetable" Obito ordered, tears pouring down his face as he knew that it was the truth.

"She was, I don't understand what's-" Obito cut him off with a pain-filled cry, beginning to attack everything in sight. Kakashi once again broke him from his tantrum.

"What exactly is going on?" Kakashi asked hesitantly, flinching when Obito turned to him and Obito was dimly aware of his sharingan still being activated.

"I killed her" Obito said, voice full of self-loathing.

"Vegetable fell three weeks ago, I ordered everyone dead, man, woman, and child. I confirmed the deaths myself" he explained. He didn't want to admit to it, not even to himself, but after what he'd just learned he owed Kakashi that much at least.

Kakashi's eyes widened in disbelief and his voice shook when he spoke, "Rin. Please, tell me you didn't. She was all I had left I…" Obito's opinion of himself dropped much lower when he heard the agony in the man's voice.

"You… How? Why?" Kakashi asked dazedly, looking up at him with a lost expression, no fear in his eyes as he met the mangekyou sharingan, when he had avoided it before now.

Obito flinched back at the expression Kakashi wore, it was completely defeated and broken, he had accomplished part of his goal, but celebrating was the furthest thing from his mind.

He had done all of this to avenge Rin, a woman who wasn't even dead. And to make matters worse, he had blamed and taken it out on Kakashi, who was protecting her, and it looked as though she meant as much to him as she did to Obito.

"You killed Rin, and, and you caused sensei's death. Naruto too. You killed sensei's son, Kushina-nee-chan, Pakkun, Bull, Urushi…" his voice dropped as he continued to mutter the names of his ninken that Obito had personally killed in the past hour of fighting.

He'd made sure that it was brutal, tearing most them to pieces, and crushing the others, forcing yelps and howls of pain from each one of them before they died.

In the past he'd imagined how pitiful Kakashi's voice would be as he pleaded for his life, but even though the tone was so much more pathetic than he'd ever expected from his former rival, he couldn't take any pleasure in it.

It actually made him sick now, especially knowing that he was the cause of it.

The last member of his old team, as of three weeks ago, he thought grimly, was falling apart right in front of him and it was all his fault.

He was pulled out of his thoughts when he felt Kakashi grab his arm.

He flinched in surprise at the touch, Kakashi had been quite a ways away when he'd started to tune him out and despite his healing him Kakashi should have been in too much pain to move.

He didn't push Kakashi away. As it was Kakashi was probably going to kill him, and to be honest he deserved much more than just death for what he'd done.

He wasn't expecting what came next as he felt the hilt of a kunai slide into his hand.

"You said that you would kill me didn't you. Please, just please finish it. I know I don't deserve it but I want to see sensei and Rin again and it'll make you feel better right?" Kakashi asked in a small, shaky voice, and Obito nearly fell apart as well at how Kakashi begged for death.

Kakashi hold weakened less than a minute later and he collapsed to the ground.

Obito crouched down, thinking that he'd finally passed out from his injuries, but that wasn't the case.

Kakashi was still conscious, but both of his eyes were glazed over, he was shaking horribly, and his breath was coming in gasped sobs.

"Kakashi" Obito called, waving his hand in front of the man's face and then pinching him to try and get his attention. Nothing worked and Obito sat back to observe him, completely at a loss as to what he should do.

He had been so focused on revenge, revenge that turned out to be needless.

He had gotten it, he had destroyed the man he'd wanted revenge on, and now that he'd done it he would do anything to undo it. Reaching out he started to heal the man's injuries further, having learned a great deal of medical ninjutsu, it was necessary to transplant new eyes after all.

The next several days were hell for him, and he definitely deserved it.

Kakashi had finally passed out, and when he'd regained consciousness he had definitely not been the Kakashi Obito had ever known.

Obito had only wanted a reaction from him when he'd awakened, and what he gotten had made him feel worse than trash.

When Kakashi had woken up he had looked at Obito uncertainly for several minutes before he'd reached out for him, "Obito, you're alive" Kakashi had said in wonder, reaching out to him hesitantly, almost as if he thought this was a dream and Obito wasn't really there.

Obito didn't pull back as Kakashi touched his face and he had been unprepared for the silver haired man to lunge forward, hugging him tightly.

"I'm so glad. It was my fault, it should have been me in that rock slide. Rin and sensei were so upset. I know they both blamed me. I wasn't supposed to wake up, but I'm glad I did so that I can apologize" he babbled into Obito's neck.

The relief in his voice made Obito blink back tears, but he tried to focus on what the man was telling him.

"You weren't supposed to wake up?" Obito asked in confusion.

He felt Kakashi nod and the man pulled back, wiping the tears from his eyes.

"I got you killed. Did you know that my dad failed a mission to save his teammates? I dishonored his memory, so I tried to repent" he explained. Obito's breath caught in his throat. Kakashi had tried to kill himself? He hadn't expected his death to have affected him that much.

Sure, his past interactions with the man when he went by Tobi had shown the man was a lot different than how he had been when they were teammates, but he'd thought that it had been Minato's death that had affected him, not his supposed one.

"But it looks like I survived, did Rin heal me?" Kakashi asked, looking around for the girl.

"No, I…" Obito's words died in his throat. Kakashi obviously wasn't in his right mind, and he couldn't bear to break the news to the man all over again, even though he knew that Kakashi deserved to know everything that was going on at this moment, and so much more.

"What happened?" the silver-haired nin was looking at him in confusion now, obviously meaning the destruction around them.

Obito observed him silently, he was a bit confused as to how Kakashi hadn't noticed he was a lot older than he should have been, that Obito was now thirty instead of the younger age that Kakashi's memory seemed to be sending him to, also that Obito had two eyes, one of them very different, instead of the one that he should have had after the accident.

"Are you alright Obito?" he flinched as Kakashi looked at him worriedly.

_"Stop looking at me like that, you should be cursing me, or trying to kill me"_ Obito thought in agony.

He had been the cause of all of Kakashi's pain in the past thirteen years after all, starting with the death of their sensei. Hell, probably before that since he hadn't returned to Konoha after he'd started to recover.

"I'm sorry Obito" Kakashi's voice broke him out of his thoughts once more and Obito swallowed hard as bile started to rise in his throat.

"Since you're alive that means that we left you there all alone. I don't deserve your forgiveness, but I just want you to know how sorry I am" Kakashi continued sincerely, not noticing the effect it was having on his former teammate.

Obito humored the teen trapped in the man's body for the next three days the best he could.

He had worked up the courage to explain what had happened to Kakashi on the second day, but Kakashi hadn't been interested at the time and the news of Minato's and Rin's deaths hadn't seemed to register with him.

The silver haired nin's thoughts were all over the place, one minute he was talking to Obito about the things that happened in the days following his death, then he would jump to begging for forgiveness as if he hadn't already done so many times before, and then he would ask about Rin and Minato again. The thoughts never stayed with him for long though, and he never remembered the conversations from the days prior, Obito had had to repeat himself several times, but it was the least he could do for the man.

Obito also got Kakashi to eat, the copy cat hadn't even thought about such things, and Obito had had to agree to eat as well before Kakashi would do so. Obito wasn't able to keep anything down though, making sure Kakashi was safe before heading off to throw up whatever he'd just eaten.

"Stop" Obito muttered on the third day when Kakashi was once again kneeling in front of him in apology, he couldn't take this anymore. Kakashi looked up at him in confusion, having heard something, but not sure exactly what had been said.

"Just stop it Kakashi, I can't take this" he felt tears start to pour down his face and grabbed Kakashi's torn collar, dragging the man close to him, sharingan activated.

It only took a few moments for him to break the barrier to Kakashi's memories. He released him, allowing Kakashi to fall back. Now that Kakashi was back to normal he waited for the anger to come.

His stomach dropped even further as Kakashi knelt in front of him again, "I meant what I said. I'm sorry for leaving you alone there, and for everything that you've gone through, thinking Rin was dead for so long" he apologized sincerely.

* * *

**Kakashi's POV**

There was nothing left for Kakashi, and while he hadn't been fully aware just moments before, that didn't mean he didn't understand what was going on.

He had been blaming himself enough for everything for so long but apparently he hadn't taken enough blame.

He now knew what had caused everything, and he felt much more guilty than he ever had before.

Not listening to Obito had caused him to be alone for who knows how long, crushed under the rocks. Not being able to defend Rin better had forced her into hiding. Not offering to finish the seal and offer up his soul in place of his sensei's, and not being in Vegetable when the Akatsuki had attacked had lead to Rin's death.

Everything could be traced back to the day that Obito had been abandoned, his fault.

"Kakashi" Obito's voice wavered as the man got his attention.

Kakashi looked up at him to see that the Uchiha was wiping tears away.

"This entire time, I wanted revenge on you, even though you didn't deserve it" Kakashi opened his mouth to argue but Obito held up his hand to silence him, "You did nothing to warrant my revenge, and I took everything from you. This crusade I've been on, I wanted to destroy the world, this world without Rin in it, and all I accomplished was the death of thousands and actually killing the one person I wanted to avenge" he said with a self-deprecating smile.

He shifted and dropped down to Kakashi's level.

"I found a technique, one that requires a lot of sacrifices to work. I was going to use you as my final sacrifice, complete my revenge, but now I realize that I don't deserve this" he told him with a shake of his head.

Kakashi froze as Obito activated his sharingan and it shifted into the mangekyou state.

"It basically would give me a second chance, and I planned to destroy your younger self, and keep Rin safe" he explained.

Kakashi nodded, "I understand, you have every right-" he was cut off by Obito shaking his head, "I just said that I don't deserve it, you however" Kakashi tried to move as Obito started to make his hand seals.

He was frozen in place by Obito's sharingan though, and couldn't do anything, not even speak anymore.

"This won't make up for anything, since you'll still have all your memories and all of the pain from before, and I'll understand if you kill my younger self to protect everyone. Just please try and be happy" he requested.

Time seemed to stand still for him as Obito brought up a kunai and stabbed it through his own heart, creating the last hand seal with one hand as he did so.

"Goodbye, and I'm sorry" Obito told him as he died.

Kakashi didn't have any time to react before the area around them lit up in a blinding white, and he felt himself fall into darkness.

* * *

Author's Note: So here's the rewrite, I hope everyone enjoyed it. I should probably state once again that even though in the manga Obito said he didn't blame Kakashi, that was the only way I could see the fic working.

Thank you for reading, please keep the reviews coming so I know how I'm doing.


	2. Starting Over

Disclaimer: Naruto isn't mine. If it was then I would have had Iruka play a bigger role, something like adopting Naruto.

Thanks for the reviews. I was planning on putting this chapter up yesterday but I was helping ECDL move into their dorm room (We go to the same college now!). And then unfortunately when we were fixing up this chapter they got a message on facebook telling them that their aunt had died (really, who does that? If you want to tell someone something like that and can't tell them to their face then pick up the phone and call). Anyway, they insisted on finishing and gave me the finished document this morning so I decided to post it as soon as I could.

Oh, and in the last chapter there was a bit of confusion. I guess my text looked really similar, but its in two different POVs so I labeled them.

* * *

**Kakashi's POV**

When Kakashi first woke up he took a few moments to regain his bearings.

He was in his home, the one that he'd lived in until just after Obito's death, having inherited it from his father. It had been given to him the moment he'd achieved the rank of genin.

Before that he'd lived with Minato, as he had been considered much too young to be by himself and the man had volunteered to look after him, having been best friends with his father, Sakumo.

Minato had fiercely protested when Kakashi had requested to move back into it, even if he had reached the rank of genin he was still just five years old. Kakashi had insisted that he didn't need to rely on Minato for help as he had attained the rank of genin of Konoha, and was therefore an adult by law.

The first thought that popped into his head was that he had been dreaming, that Konoha was still standing and that he could go meet his former students for lunch or some sparring, maybe wait for Gai to challenge him to a ridiculous contest of some sort. That was just wishful thinking though and he knew it.

A couple of months after Obito had died Kakashi had moved out of the Hatake home and into an apartment. The amount of space available had made him start to feel lonely and he'd had to leave. The house was a three story, with six bedrooms. There was a kitchen, living room, a bathroom and dining room on the main floor, along with three of the rooms, the second floor had the other three bedrooms, and another bathroom, and the third floor was more of an attic. Sakumo had once lived here with his parents, aunt, and cousin. After the last of them had died Sakumo had converted one room into a study for himself, one into a library, one into storage, one into a guest room, one into Kakashi's room, and one as his room.

Up until the time he'd moved out, Kakashi had only steered clear of his father's room and the study, not sure if he'd be able to handle entering them when they would hold so many memories of his father. He didn't leave the house though, even if it hurt, because that would be proving people right, that he was too young to be on his own, and that he was following the shinobi code, dampening his emotions.

Reality came crashing down on him still further when he'd risen from his bed and nearly tripped, his limbs much smaller than he remembered them being and therefore causing him to misjudge his movements.

His dread continued to increase as he walked hesitantly to the mirror, letting out a pained cry when he confirmed that all of this was really happening to him. He hadn't noticed it right when he'd woken up, used to just keeping his sharingan eye closed because it ate up his chakra, but there was no scar present, and he cautiously opened his eye to see that the sharingan he'd had for so long was gone.

Trying not to panic, he then tried to discern his age, and guessed that he was probably around eight or nine. He was generally pretty good with guessing ages of people, at least when they weren't using strange techniques to alter their appearance.

Racing back to his bed he dug under it until he found his team picture, confirming that he was at least nine since that had been when Obito and Rin had been added to his team. He hadn't cared much for this picture when he was younger, mainly because he didn't want the two on his team, and had smashed the frame to pieces after he'd brought it home and then kicked it under his bed.

When Obito had supposedly died he had pulled it out, getting it a new frame and leaving it in the middle of his kitchen table. He'd found it quite pathetic, but it was another way for him to keep his teammate's memory alive, to act as though Obito were eating with him. Looking the picture over he wiped away a tear, he was really in the past, he could make it up to Obito now.

In an attempt to cheer himself up he joked, _"I can't blame the tears on Obito being a crybaby now"_.

That only served to upset him further and he tried to stifle a cry which failed as he began to sob uncontrollably.

He winced as he dropped the picture, cutting himself on some of the plastic cover as it fell. Ignoring that, he moved forward and collapsed onto his bed, crying into his pillow.

* * *

**Pakkun's POV**

Pakkun frowned when he woke up around eight to find his bowl, which was usually filled in the mornings, empty. The pug glared accusingly at Urushi and Uuhei.

Urushi, the light brown dog with the white underbelly and muzzle, along with spiky fur on his head, looked at him in confusion, glancing at the bowl as well. Uuhei, the red-brown pup with the white underbelly and muzzle, wasn't so calm about it and barked, upset at the accusation and, Pakkun expected, due to hunger as well.

Kakashi was usually gone by now, out training. He had never forgotten to feed the two ninken and ninken-in-training though, and Pakkun doubted that the boy would ever be so irresponsible.

Both Pakkun and Urushi had passed their ninken test, Pakkun two years before, and Urushi a few months before. Uuhei was coming along with his training, and would hopefully be taking his test in another few months, if Kakashi wasn't too preoccupied with their newest additions.

Minato had stopped by a few weeks ago while Kakashi was in the middle of one of his D-ranked missions to speak with the three dogs and had asked if they would be upset if Kakashi received two more dogs. They hadn't been that surprised.

Pakkun had been a gift to Kakashi after his father's death, something to keep his mind occupied from the grief. Kakashi had trained him some, but had been more focused on passing the Academy. It had been when Kakashi was about to turn seven that he'd taken and passed the ninken test.

Urushi had been given to Kakashi on his eight birthday by Minato, and Uuhei had been given to him on his ninth birthday, again by his sensei.

Minato had come both times to ask Pakkun if he would be alright with more dogs, and the ninken had readily agreed, knowing that Kakashi would want them, and thinking some more company would be nice for when Kakashi wasn't home.

Kakashi's tenth birthday was in a month and Minato wanted to give him two dogs this time since Kakashi had developed a pretty good training system from working with the three he already had.

Pakkun also figured it was sort of an apology for accepting the two genin onto the team, even though that was how things were supposed to be done.

"Pakkun, you hear?" Urushi asked in broken speech, snapping him from his thought. Urushi was almost two years old and had gotten down the basics of spoken word, and was now learning the proper grammar.

"Cry" Uuhei yipped in agreement. Uuhei was the newest addition, having been there just under a year. He was a lot more excitable than the other two since he was so young. He had started speaking earlier than Pakkun and Urushi with help from Kakashi and the other two. He didn't have a very large vocabulary yet, and wasn't very good at putting words together into sentences.

Pakkun's ears perked up and sure enough he heard the sound of crying.

Alarmed, he raced out of the kitchen and down the short hallway, past the bathroom, and to the room where Kakashi slept. He pushed it open with his paw hesitantly. Kakashi never closed the door in case one of the ninken wanted to sleep in his room.

Pakkun was nearly bowled over by Urushi and Uuhei who weren't as concerned with Kakashi's privacy, both of them raced into the room and then jumped onto Kakashi's bed, whimpering.

"What's wrong pup?" Pakkun padded silently into the room.

Kakashi flinched at the sound and pushed himself up, wiping his eyes on the back of his hand. "Sorry" Kakashi mumbled, allowing Uuhei to lick his face.

Pakkun jumped up onto the bed next to him.

"Did you have a nightmare pup?" he asked. Kakashi hadn't had a nightmare in years, at least that he told Pakkun about. When he'd been younger though, Pakkun had slept on the floor nearby in his room because more often than not Kakashi would have a nightmare that he would have to wake him up from. Plus if he slept on the bed he was liable to get thrown off.

Most of the time Kakashi's dreams had been about his father's death and he would cry for a long time after having one. He didn't cry anymore though, he'd stopped crying around the age of six when he'd reached Chuunin, rigidly trying to follow the shinobi rule about ninja not showing tears.

Kakashi shook his head no to Pakkun's question, "I wish" he mumbled, finally pushing Uuhei down and scratching the pup's ears. Urushi got the boy's attention next, pawing at his sleeve.

"What wrong?" he asked, a slight whimper in his voice. Despite the way he looked, his eyes making him seem as if he was always angry, Urushi was very caring to those who were friends.

Kakashi shook his head, "I'm not sure if you'd understand" he said.

"Girl troubles?" Pakkun asked, though he doubted it. He didn't particularly understand all the human rituals about dating and things, but that was pretty much the only thing he couldn't understand. That didn't make any sense though, because the only time Kakashi ever seemed to pay attention to girls was when they were enemy nin and he had to kill them.

Kakashi gave a choked laugh, "No, not girls. It doesn't make much sense to me to be honest. I don't know how to explain it and even if I did you'd think I'd gone insane" he told them.

"In..sane?" Uuhei asked, tilting his head in question at the unfamiliar word.

"I'll explain later pup" Pakkun told him, focusing on Kakashi worriedly. "You can try it" he said gently, pulling Uuhei back, despite his larger size, when he moved to start licking Kakashi again.

Kakashi shook his head, "I don't know where to begin" he responded.

"Then just start talking. We can try and help" Pakkun cajoled. He didn't really want to pry since it seemed Kakashi didn't want to share, but he wanted to help and knowing what was going on was the only way that he could do so.

Kakashi seemed uncertain which made Pakkun and Urushi exchange uneasy glances. Uuhei didn't understand much about human emotion yet, and just sat there, waiting for Pakkun to let him up since the pug was still holding him back from jumping on Kakashi.

"What do you know about time travel?" their summoner finally questioned.

* * *

**Minato's POV**

Minato resisted the urge to sigh as he sat across from the Uchiha on his team. The boy was ranting about Kakashi, how the boy thought he was so much better than everyone, and how he treated Obito and Rin like mud.

Minato silently agreed with him, that Kakashi's attitude was difficult to deal with, but this was partially Obito's fault as well. Once Rin had expressed interest in their new teammate, Obito had immediately started badmouthing him and instigating one fight after the other in an effort to prove himself to Rin.

"And he said that with my intelligence I would get killed just stepping outside of the village, before our mission even started" Obito finished his rant, eyes starting to water slightly as he got worked up, and Minato winced.

He had spoken with Obito's family on a couple of occasions and they seemed to have the same thoughts Kakashi did about Obito. The future clan head Fugaku had been chosen about a year before and had a lot to say about Obito, none of it good. He had informed Minato that had Obito not carried the Uchiha DNA, and therefore most likely the Uchiha bloodline, he would have disowned the boy.

When Minato had spoken with Obito's parents he had been surprised to find that they were even more critical. He figured he had learned where all of the bruises the boy definitely lied about had come from. They hadn't shared the same "leniency" as Fugaku had, and while they could do nothing about renouncing his name as an Uchiha, they had kicked him out of their home.

His parents had given up on him after he'd had some eye problems, and had done poorly in the Academy.

Obito actually was in much the same position as Kakashi. While Obito's parents were still alive, they played no role in Obito's life. Obito was living in one of the rundown homes in an annexed part of the Uchiha property and all his money for food, clothing, and even weaponry came from the meager amount he made on their D-rank missions.

Kakashi was slightly better off in that respect, he had money from his father to pay for things, so even with the small amount of pay from his D-rank missions he was still able to buy whatever he wanted or needed.

In fact Minato was pretty sure that the reason the two couldn't get along was because of how differently they'd grown from their situations. While Obito didn't know much about Kakashi's background, and Kakashi didn't know much about Obito's, they had both left very similar situations with very different personalities.

Obito was loud and abrasive, constantly yelling that he was going to be the best, to get acknowledged, but complaining when he couldn't do something instead of continuing with his training if it got too difficult. Kakashi wasn't interested in getting acknowledgement, just in getting stronger. Due to that he put all of his effort into training.

Minato was worried for both of them for these reasons. Obito would train a lot on his own, but he didn't look to Minato for help, determined to do everything on his own, so his ability for future potentially dangerous missions was uncertain. He insisted that he was an Uchiha and would train like an Uchiha, disregarding the fact that his relatives had been on teams and had been trained by people outside of the clan.

Kakashi did nothing but train. Minato was half afraid that he would push himself much too far and become horribly injured. There was also the fact that he didn't ever take breaks and was always on guard, at least he had been when he'd lived with Minato and that had been an entire year.

He'd been hoping that both boys would rub off on one another, that Kakashi would learn to relax a bit and have fun like Obito did, and Obito would get a bit more serious about training like Kakashi.

That had fallen apart pretty quickly, at the first meeting both boys had decided they couldn't stand one another and the past three months had just made everything worse.

Rin sometimes would run interference for them, but she had a huge crush on Kakashi that had only gotten stronger as time wore on, even though Minato and Obito were the only two to notice as far as he could tell.

Minato definitely agreed with Obito even though the boy had been badmouthing Kakashi at the time; that Kakashi wouldn't know if girl was interested in him even if she stripped down naked and crawled into bed with him.

Because of her crush, Rin often sided against Obito in arguments and even though she didn't mean to, by doing this she helped the rift between them grow. Obito always blamed Kakashi when Rin would disagree with him, making him resent the boy even more, especially since he so easily brushed off Rin's affection.

Breaking out of his thought he noticed that Obito was staring at him in annoyance, obviously he had missed something as he thought.

He gave the boy a sheepish smile, "Sorry Obito, what was that?" he asked. Obito gave a huff and folded his arms, "I asked if we could get a C-rank mission soon" he said with a huff. Minato gave him a small half-smile.

"Sorry Obito, but you all need a bit more work before you'll be ready" he said apologetically.

Obito glared, "You even went on a B-rank mission with Kakashi before Rin and I joined the team. Now you have more people so we should be better. You just like Kakashi better than the two of us" he accused.

Minato sighed, "That's not true Obito. It is true that we do have more people, but think about it. You and Kakashi cannot get along, and Rin won't get involved in your arguments. It's too dangerous to take a C-ranked mission at this point if you can't put aside your differences. You haven't even been able to go more than two weeks without failing a D-ranked mission because you're unable to get along. Until you can do at least that, I will not allow a C-ranked mission" he explained.

Obito glared at him and then went into another rant about how Kakashi's attitude was the reason for all of their failures and that the boy was holding them back because of it.

* * *

**Rin's POV**

Rin was a bit confused when she arrived at the training grounds that day. In all the months that she'd been on this team, she had never been the first to arrive.

She didn't know what time he got there, but even on the first day as a new team, Kakashi had been there, already training, when she'd shown up at six. It was now seven thirty, still half an hour before their team meeting, but pretty late by the silver haired boy's standards.

She decided to take a seat at the base of the large tree next to the bridge as always, and wait for Kakashi, as well the other members of her team of course.

When Minato arrived with Obito in tow, she started to worry. Kakashi wouldn't have blown off training if he could help it. He'd arrived when he'd had a cold one time, and trained until Minato had realized and forced him to go back home to rest.

Judging by his expression, Minato was as worried as she was.

"Hah, now he can't make a big deal about me getting here late" Obito laughed, breaking the silence. Kakashi was always calling him out for being late, and the excuses that accompanied it.

Rin figured Minato had either gone to Obito's house and brought him here, or today had been one of the days that Minato invited Obito to breakfast.

Minato had been Kakashi's teacher since he was five, and his guardian before that. Because of that he knew the Hatake very well, and had felt that getting to know Rin and Obito would help him later on for their training and cohesiveness as a team.

Rin had already met with him six times for breakfast, and this had been Obito's sixth time as well by her count had it occurred today.

"Rin, Obito, you two stay here please. Start your warm-ups, I'll be having you spar. I'll hopefully be right back" Minato told them before taking off.

* * *

**Minato's POV**

He was worried about his Chuunin student, and he could tell Rin was worried, but probably not as worried as he was. Kakashi had shown up with a cold a few weeks after the team had formed, it was true. Prior to the team formation though, he'd come to training when he'd had such a high fever that Minato had been surprised he even remembered how to get to the training grounds.

Kakashi had been hospitalized for a week in that instance, having caught pneumonia from training out in the rain, and he'd still insisted on a daily basis that he was still fit for training.

He soon reached Kakashi's house. It was an older house that was in need of a lot of repairs. There were parts of the original house now, but most of it was newer. Sakumo hadn't really done much in the way of fixing it up, not a very good carpenter and unwilling to pay someone to do it for him, and Kakashi really didn't care about the upkeep.

Minato hated this house, he hadn't wanted Kakashi to live here either after what had happened here. He remembered it vividly.

He'd been woken up in the middle of the night by a messenger, informing him that his best friend was dead, and that the Hokage was requesting his presence at the Hatake home.

At first Minato had been afraid that Kakashi had been killed as well, especially after learning that Sakumo's body had been found in the man's study. He'd arrived at the scene and immediately an ANBU had passed over the distraught four-year-old, insisting that Minato watch him so he wouldn't get in the way.

Kakashi had been the one to find the body and the woman who had just dropped him off after babysitting him had dragged him away from Sakumo's corpse as he fought to get back to his father.

An ANBU had arrived shortly after, having been sent to talk with Sakumo about the possibility of a trial for his actions in his failed mission. He had quickly locked down the scene and called for people to investigate.

The case had been closed quickly, the investigators hadn't put much of an effort into it, and it had been deemed a definite suicide by the next day.

Minato was still surprised that Kakashi could live somewhere with such memories attached to it.

Pulling himself from his thought he sensed for Kakashi inside the house and was relieved to at least feel the boy's chakra. He quickly knocked on the door.

* * *

**Pakkun's POV**

When Kakashi had finished his story both Pakkun and Urushi were staring at him in horror.

They believed him readily enough, Kakashi would never lie to them about something like this, and there was no way he had dreamt it.

Uuhei had only understood part of the story and when Kakashi had finished speaking he'd immediately moved onto the boy's lap to comfort him when he'd broken down into sobs, allowing Kakashi to cry into his fur, despite being too big for such things.

Pakkun leapt off the bed to talk with him outside the room, not wanting to intrude. "Truth" Urushi stated and Pakkun nodded, "I know. The question is what are we going to do to help?" he asked. Urushi frowned, "Stay with Kashi" he finally replied.

Pakkun had been about to responded, when he heard the knock at the door. Urushi growled, "Sensei" he stated before going back into Kakashi's room to warn him that Minato was there.

Pakkun moved to the door and pushed open the large flap that Kakashi had installed years before, just after getting Urushi. It was designed to accommodate a dog bigger than Urushi, useful since Uuhei was bigger than both of them.

"Ah, Pakkun. I'm here looking for Kakashi. Is he alright? He's late to training" Minato said in greeting. Pakkun tensed, now that he thought about it, what would Kakashi want him to tell the blonde? Would he want him to tell the truth and say that the boy was crying? Would he want him to say that Kakashi was sick? If he did then Minato would insist on entering the house.

As he thought about his response, Minato knelt down to his level and scratched his ears. Minato was the only one besides Kakashi that he would normally allow to do this, not caring to be touched, and especially not by strangers.

He had lived with Minato for about six months when he'd been a pup and the man still visited Kakashi once in a while, though he hadn't stopped by in the past few months.

"I'm not sure" Pakkun finally said. Minato stopped scratching his ears and frowned, "Not sure about what?" he asked in confusion, "Is Kakashi here or not?"

Pakkun nodded, "He's here, but other than that I'm not sure" he responded.

He was saved from continuing to misdirect the man's attention when Kakashi opened the door behind him.

"Kakashi?" Minato asked in surprise.

Looking up Pakkun could see that Kakashi's eyes were still red-rimmed from crying and that he looked exhausted. Minato wasted no time in ushering him inside and closing the door behind him. Pakkun sighed, climbing back in through the dog door.

* * *

**Minato' s POV**

What the hell had happened to his student? He hadn't seen Kakashi cry since he'd moved out, but he doubted that Kakashi had cried after that point either.

He'd been focused, to an unhealthy degree, to following the shinobi code. He also harped on one rules that stated shinobi weren't allowed to show tears.

He was further surprised when Kakashi turned and hugged him, burying his face into Minato's shirt as he cried.

Despite his surprise, he returned the hug immediately as he raised an eyebrow in silent question at Urushi and Uuhei who were sitting behind Kakashi. Uuhei just whimpered and Urushi's ears drooped sadly.

"Kakashi, what happened?" he asked after allowing the boy to cry for several minutes.

Kakashi pulled away, wiping his eyes, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have" he muttered.

Minato frowned and shook his head, "You're allowed to be upset Kakashi. Now let's go into the kitchen. I'll make some tea and you can tell me what this is all about. Okay?" he asked. Kakashi nodded meekly and led the man into the kitchen.

Minato paused at the doorway and looked at Pakkun, "I know you'd probably rather stay here, but would you do me a favor?" he asked. Pakkun nodded immediately, "You three are probably enough to take care of him for now. What is it?" he asked.

* * *

**Rin's POV**

She had been waiting with Obito for nearly half an hour, listening to the Uchiha complain about Kakashi.

Meanwhile she was worrying. She hoped Kakashi was alright, even though she didn't really know him that well she cared about him. True, she had a crush on the boy, and had ever since they'd been placed on the same team.

He was a little cold to everyone, even to their sensei at times, but he took his duty as a ninja very seriously.

Kakashi was pretty much the exact opposite of Obito. Even though Obito was striving to be a great ninja and achieve acceptance from his clan, he was almost never serious and didn't seem to put much effort into their missions or group training.

"A dog?" Obito asked in surprise, drawing her from her thoughts. In front of them there was a pug wearing a Konoha headband and blue vest.

"Yo" he held up a paw in greeting. "It can talk" Obito shouted in amazement, kneeling down in front of the dog and poking it in wonder.

Rin's eyes widened, "Obito, don't do that. It's a ninken" she cried in alarm. Obito looked over at her in confusion, finger poised to poke the dog again.

Rin winced as a moment later the dog clamped down on the Uchiha's hand and he started screaming in pain. As soon as he'd finished waving his hand around, trying to dislodge the dog, the pug released him.

"Yo, I'm Pakkun. Your sensei asked me to work on your stealth and concealment techniques. The object is to hide from me for as long as possible. You both pretty much already fail since I have your scents, but try your best. If any of you stays hidden from me for an entire hour I'll let you touch my paw-pads. They're really soft, and really bouncy" he said, holding up his paw again to show them.

"Who the hell would want to do something like that?" Obito demanded angrily.

Pakkun's eyes narrowed, "Obviously not someone who smells like cat" he growled before walking a few steps away and turning to observe them. "These are orders from your sensei as well, so you'd do well to comply with them. I don't agree to do things very often you know, at least for people who aren't my partner. You should be flattered that I'm taking the time to help train you runts" he told them.

"And what if I refuse? You can't do anything to me" Obito told him, folding his arms and glaring at the pug. The next second he was screaming in pain again as Pakkun attacked his ankle.

"Obito-kun, we should just do it. I mean, these are sensei's orders, and it would be really good training. Ninken are specialized trackers, so we'll learn a lot" Rin said, nervous to interrupt the pair. Pakkun finally released him, and thankfully the irate Uchiha grudgingly agreed.

The pug observed them both for a moment. "Alright, there are only a couple of rules, the first being that you can't leave the village, obviously. The second, you cannot enter any area which I am not allowed to enter. That means no Uchiha Compound" he said, looking pointedly at the dark haired boy. Obito just glared, arms folded over his chest again.

"The final rule is that you are to try and conceal yourself only, attack me and I will report you to your sensei and maybe request that Urushi come along, and he's not as nice as I am. I will allow you to use things to attempt to trap me as long as they are only for restraint and not intended to cause me harm" Pakkun listed.

"Sounds fair" Rin agreed with a smile. Obito grumbled his agreement and soon they had both left the pug to find a place to hide.

* * *

**Kakashi's POV**

He wasn't all that happy about his current predicament.

For one, he hadn't thought about how he would react to seeing his formerly dead sensei once again and hadn't had any time to prepare for such a thing. For another, Minato was now asking questions that Kakashi really couldn't answer.

His ninken knowing all about his past (future?) had been one thing, but Minato interacted with more than just him on a daily basis, and would have to report this information to the Hokage.

Besides, his ninken blamed Obito for this and if by some miracle the blonde believed him he might think the same as his ninken and do something to the boy.

And even though it was selfish of him, he didn't want to deal with the possibility of being locked up and forced away from everyone when he had just been given a chance to spend time with them, no matter how much he didn't deserve such a thing.

Uuhei was currently sitting on the ground next to him resting his head on Kakashi's lap. Urushi was too short to do that and had pulled over a chair before jumping up next to him and curling up, leaning against Kakashi as he did so. Kakashi absently rubbed Uuhei's ears as he thought.

Minato was at the counter making tea, back to him. He knew though, that Minato was watching him out of the corner of his eye as he worked.

After a lot of thought, he really only had one option for explanation, no matter how pathetic it made him sound.

Minato soon placed a cup of tea in front of him and took a place across from him. "So, have you calmed down a little?" he asked softly. Kakashi didn't meet his gaze, just nodded.

He wasn't sure if he could keep from bursting into tears again if he saw the concern on Minato's face.

"Did you want to talk about it?" Minato questioned hesitantly.

Kakashi figured that was about right, after he'd moved out of the man's house, any attempts at asking about his well being were generally met with glares.

He shook his head, "I just had a nightmare, it's nothing" he replied.

A shuffling sound across from him alerted him to Minato standing up and a hand under his chin forced him to look up. "Kakashi, a nightmare isn't nothing" he insisted firmly, "You don't have to talk about it with me if you don't want to, but I'm definitely willing to listen"

"_I suppose there's no reason why I can't start changing things now"_ Kakashi thought, "It was just about my dad again" he admitted quietly.

Minato started and Kakashi had to hold down a wince at the man's reaction. He was sure Minato was surprised that he was willingly sharing. He'd often told Kakashi that he would listen if he needed to vent, but Kakashi never took him up on the offer.

"Would you mind telling me exactly what it was about maybe?" Minato asked cautiously. And with that Kakashi started talking about one of the dreams he'd had frequently, even as an adult.

* * *

**Pakkun's POV**

Pakkun wished that Uuhei was here instead of him. The pup still needed to practice after all, and while these two were terrible at concealing themselves, they might provide a slight challenge to the greyhound since he more heavily relied on sight instead of smell.

In the past two hours he'd found Rin seven times, and Obito twelve.

It wasn't really that the girl was any better, though Pakkun would swear that was the case if he was asked about it later. No, even if he logically knew the boy didn't remember his actions against Kakashi, it didn't mean Pakkun was above punishing him a little.

When he found them he would bite.

Well, with Rin he would nip, but he took pleasure in hearing Obito's screams and would dig his teeth in as soon as he discovered the hiding spot, telling him it was incentive to do better.

Three hours later they took a break for lunch and Pakkun sat happily next to Rin as she offered him some of the barbeque they'd gotten, ignoring the irate glares from the heavily bandaged boy across from them as he ate the treats.

* * *

Note: It never really states how Kakashi got his ninken, at least not anywhere I looked. Like if he got them all at the same time, or if he got them at different ones. It also states on Narutopedia that when Pakkun was four months old he was able to say Kakashi's name so it was likely that he was raised by Kakashi.

Therefore instead of like the other summons throughout the series that have their own realm, I'm going to make it so that Kakashi's ninken live with him, as is supported by one of the manga. I'm also going to make it so that he got them over time rather than all at once.

Thank you for taking the time to read this story. Please Review.


	3. Comfort, and Old Faces

Disclaimer: Naruto isn't mine, and if it were then Gaara would have been taken in by Konoha and raised there, and become best friends with Naruto.

So, someone pointed out that Kakashi's father died after he'd graduated from the Academy. Like I said, I haven't watched most of the anime and haven't read any of the manga, and neither has ECDL and we must have missed it in the Narutopedia articles. That being said, after reading through what I have so far, I think that leaving it as is works the best in terms of my storyline. You'll see some of it in this chapter, and even more so in a couple of chapters. So, in this fanfiction Kakashi's dad died when he was four, before Kakashi graduated from the Academy.

Once again, I had planned to post this on Sunday but wasn't able to get the time. Time between updates might start increasing as my class load picks up, but hopefully I'll be able to manage at least every two weeks.

* * *

**Minato's POV**

Kakashi's nightmare wasn't as descriptive as the dreams he'd had when he was younger, but just as graphic. At least, when compared to the nightmares he'd heard about anyway.

When Kakashi had still been an Academy student he had been required to see a psychiatrist for several months. He hadn't been comfortable being alone in a strange room with anyone that he didn't know though, and Minato had sat in with him.

Unfortunately, after Kakashi had graduated from the Academy and been placed with Minato, he had refused to return to counseling, and Minato had been so worried about losing Kakashi's trust that he'd let him do so.

Besides, it wasn't as if Kakashi had ever really said much, but as time had worn on he'd started to talk with the psychiatrist a little more.

Minato had regretted the decision every once in a while, but Kakashi was extremely stubborn and definitely wouldn't forgive him if he forced him to return to counseling at this point.

Kakashi's previous dreams had been dark, usually playing out the exact events as they had occurred, at least from what Minato had learned from the reports and the witness. Sometimes they got a little worse, where sometimes Minato was also dead, or where Kakashi would be alone and nobody would be there to drag him away from the body, so he was forced to remain with the corpse.

The one he described now was much worse than anyone should have to deal with, though Kakashi shouldn't have had to deal with the actual events either, and Minato was extremely glad Kakashi hadn't dreamt this sort of thing when he was four.

Kakashi had had difficulty coping as it was, Minato wasn't sure he would have been able to deal with this.

"This dream takes place before my babysitter got there I think. I was in my dad's office with him for some reason. He was talking to me, telling me that I had to work harder. That he'd disgraced the Hatake name and that I had to fix things. Then he took the katana from the wall in his office and showed it to me. He said something about the honor of my grandparents and great grandparents. Then he took it and slit his throat with it, then fell to the ground. I don't wake up then, he gets up and it sort of starts over again, but he's still covered in blood" Kakashi described distantly.

Minato was silent for a few moments, not sure what to say since he'd never had any luck with comforting Kakashi in the past.

Finally he made up his mind and stood, moving around the table and pushing aside Urushi, and then kneeling down and pulling Kakashi into a hug.

He had hoped that Kakashi wouldn't fight it now that he was less upset, and he was glad to note that, after initially tensing, Kakashi leaned into it, shifting to hug Minato back.

"But that's not what happened" Minato said firmly, "Your father loved you, and he just wanted you be safe and happy" he insisted.

He felt Kakashi nod and slowly pulled away.

"Are you going to be alright?" Minato asked softly, kneeling next to the boy. Kakashi didn't meet his eye, but nodded again.

"Kashi okay?" Uuhei tried to clarify, giving Kakashi a suspicious look, as if daring him to lie.

Kakashi gave him a small smile and held out his hand to the dog.

"I'll be fine Uuhei" he promised. Uuhei eyed him critically for a bit longer before finally deciding he was telling the truth and dragging him out of the chair. He pushed Kakashi to the ground so that he was at a better level before proceeding to lick him.

Urushi jumped from the chair and joined in. Minato grinned as they drew some laughter from the boy.

* * *

**Kakashi's POV**

He felt a lot better after talking things over with Minato, even if he hadn't been able to explain the real reason for why he'd been so upset.

It really wasn't the comfort so much as the fact that this had never happened in the original timeline. Even though it wasn't something huge, he'd still changed something. With that knowledge he hoped that he'd be able to affect bigger things in the future.

Even after he had assured the blonde that he was fine, Minato insisted on spending the rest of the day with him, saying that Rin and Obito were in good paws and could survive a day without him.

After that Minato invited Kakashi back to his home. He had a lot more food there and had insisted on cooking lunch for the two of them.

Kakashi didn't feel bad at all for skipping practice that day, wanting to spend time with Minato since it had been cut short in the future. He was half happy, and half afraid to see Rin and Obito again, not sure how he would react to them.

Minato lived in a two-bedroom apartment near the marketplace. Kakashi rarely had been to this apartment.

The blonde had moved to this one a couple of years after Kakashi had moved out. It wasn't much, but it looked a lot more lived-in than Kakashi's, since Minato didn't care as much about cleanliness and order as Kakashi did.

The next several hours consisted of Minato making them lunch, and them just talking.

Unfortunately for Kakashi, it was about things that he really couldn't fully remember, but considering the answer to "what have you been up to" at that age had been "training", and he didn't really deviate from his routine, he could fake his responses relatively well.

* * *

**Minato's POV**

Minato felt pretty horrible about how he'd been treating Kakashi recently.

Since Rin and Obito had joined three months before, he hadn't visited Kakashi once, or even asked how he was doing, even though he'd been asking nearly every day before that.

He hadn't meant to, it was just that he'd known Kakashi practically since the day he'd been born, and figured he should make an effort to try and get to know his new students just as well. Besides, Kakashi had always seemed to dislike when Minato would check up on him, insisting that he could care for himself.

It was around three in the afternoon in the middle of one of their conversations when he saw Kakashi was drifting off, and just a little after that he was asleep on Minato's couch.

Minato smiled when the two dogs curled up with him and maneuvered around them to cover Kakashi with a blanket before telling Urushi that he was heading out in case Kakashi woke up before he got back. Urushi just nodded in response.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX

He couldn't keep his eye from twitching when he arrived at the training grounds to find Rin nursing a couple of bruises, and Obito lying on the ground, covered in bandages.

Pakkun just looked up at him innocently and raised his paw in greeting, "Yo, welcome back" he greeted, as if nothing had happened.

"What happened?" Minato demanded after he'd collected himself.

"This dog's crazy. He kept biting me whenever he would find me. Tell me you didn't tell him he could do that" Obito moaned.

Minato sighed and turned to Pakkun, "I asked you to train them, not kill them" he said in exasperation.

"I wouldn't kill your students, only maim or seriously injure" Pakkun stated, smirking at the fallen boy.

Minato facepalmed, "You can go to my house if you want. Thank you for your services, I doubt we'll need them again" he said.

Pakkun shrugged, "Hey, he should have hid himself better once he knew what to expect, it's not my fault he didn't seem to learn" Pakkun replied lazily as he began to walk off.

"Blood helps you track things. Biting him made it easier to find him" Minato cried after him.

Pakkun turned back, eyes wide, Minato figured it was because he'd been caught. "No comment" he answered and raced off quickly.

Minato shook his head in exasperation before turning to his students, "Obito, I'll help you to the hospital. Rin, you should head home. Your bruises don't look that bad and should heal relatively quickly. Training's going to be in the afternoon tomorrow, but Obito, if you aren't up to it I'll understand" he said, wincing in sympathy as Obito nearly fell over as he tried to rise.

Rin could have gone to the hospital with them, but using chakra to heal injuries was both a good and bad thing. If small things like bruises or cuts got healed too often then the body would expect to be healed by chakra rather than naturally, which was dangerous. Therefore only injuries that would be detrimental long-term, or caused a great deal of pain, were to be healed with chakra.

"Sensei, is Kakashi okay?" Rin asked as he started off with Obito.

Minato turned as gave her a short nod, "He'll be fine. He should be here tomorrow" he answered.

She smiled in response and he was glad that he didn't read too much into her words, not meaning for them to have come out that way, as if he wasn't fine now. Rin turned and waved goodbye, then took off, presumably to go home.

* * *

**Kakashi's POV**

Kakashi woke up to the weight of Pakkun as the pug climbed onto his chest.

"Hey pup, sorry to wake you up. Did you have a good talk with your sensei?" the pug asked softy.

Kakashi nodded, "I'm feeling a bit better about this I think. The first time I upset sensei a lot because I brushed off his attempts to look after me, so I figured I could try and make up for that even if it's not necessary. I'll have to move a bit slower with making things up to Obito since he definitely doesn't trust me and will probably get suspicious if I just start being nice to him. Rin, I'm not sure, I didn't really talk with her much before Obito's death and she was polite afterwards, but I could tell she was angry that I wanted to leave her behind. After she left the village she just sent status reports, nothing really about herself. That was after everything though, so I'm not sure how to interact with her now" he explained.

Pakkun just nodded, shifting to make himself comfortable.

"I'm not sure how I feel about the Uchiha, but it's up to you how exactly you choose to interact with him. We'll help you out too I guess and we can make a plan later. For now go back to sleep" he ordered.

Kakashi gave him a small smile and a short nod. He figured it had something to do with the time travel because he was never this tired normally. He drifted off almost immediately as soon as he closed his eyes.

He next woke to the familiar smell of ramen being cooked.

Naruto had often made ramen whenever Kakashi would visit him around mealtime, and even though he'd refused it, he definitely remembered the scent.

It took him a moment to remember that he wasn't in his former student's apartment, and a bit longer to convince himself that nothing that had happened earlier had been a dream.

Once he'd regained his bearings, Kakashi gently woke Pakkun and the pug crawled off of him, allowing him to sit up. Urushi and Uuhei might have been woken up as well, though Kakashi doubted they'd been asleep the entire time, and one of them had probably been fully awake. They liked to take turns keeping watch over him when they were in the capacity to do so, even when they were safely in the Hatake home, so it wasn't strange that they would do this at Minato's house. The two moved to allow him to rise.

Kakashi yawned and then stood, making his way tiredly to the kitchen.

"Hey Kashi-chan" the redhead woman greeted him.

He was a bit surprised to see Kushina there. He was only nine according to the dogs, and he hadn't thought his sensei had gotten together with the redhead until just before his jounin exams.

Kakashi opened his mouth to reply before mentally slapping himself. He couldn't call her nee-chan yet, he hadn't started that until after she'd started dating Minato and had bullied him into it.

"Uzumaki-san" he greeted politely instead, giving her a short bow. He winced when she moved rapidly in front of him and then flicked him in the forehead.

"It's Kushina, okay Kashi-chan. I've already told you several times" she chided before moving back to the ramen.

"I hope you're hungry. Minato-baka said you're staying for dinner so I made enough for you too. Can your dogs eat ramen?" she asked.

Kakashi mentally sighed in relief, he had been a bit worried that maybe he was either remembering things wrong, or that things had happened differently than how they had for him.

That wasn't the case, Kushina had stopped adding –baka to Minato's name after they'd gotten together unless he did something really stupid. It looked like they were still friends for now.

He flinched and instinctively jumped back when he felt a hand press against his forehead and looked up to see Kushina looking at him with a slightly worried frown.

"You zoned out. You never zone out Kashi-chan. Are you feeling alright?" she asked him.

Kakashi nodded quickly, "Fine, sorry. My dogs shouldn't eat ramen. It's not good for them. I'll get them something when I go home" he answered.

She was still frowning, but she just gave a short nod and went back to the stove and removed the ramen from the heat.

Kakashi was relieved that she was making ramen rather than anything else. He'd been surprised he'd survived the encounters with her other attempts at cooking, she had been that bad when she'd first started. That was why Minato usually cooked if possible, and Kakashi always made sure to have good reason on hand for why he couldn't eat with her when the blonde wasn't around and she'd invite him over.

That had changed though, when she'd started practicing more and more, eventually becoming a pretty good cook.

Soon she had put some in three bowls, taking them to the kitchen table and setting them down.

"How about you start Kashi-chan? I'll go get Minato" she offered. Kakashi nodded and sat down, waiting for the ramen to cool enough for him to eat. The two soon entered the kitchen.

"You're awake" Minato greeted with a smile. Kakashi just gave a short nod, fighting back a yawn.

Minato shrugged, "Well, let's eat" he decided, taking his seat while Kushina took hers.

The three dogs were now in the kitchen, sitting next to the three and looking up at them with innocent begging expressions.

"So cute," Kushina squealed at Uuhei, looking to Kakashi and holding up a piece of chicken, looking at him in question.

Kakashi nodded, "Not too many though" he warned as Kushina handed it to the greyhound. Uuhei accepted it from her carefully.

"Hey, what about us?" Pakkun asked indignantly.

"I was informed by Obito that Rin gave you some of their barbeque. If you keep this up you'll get fat and won't be able to move" Minato teased. Pakkun glared at him before slinking away, muttering about snitches.

"Oh, that reminds me. Obito won't be at training tomorrow, Pakkun sort of mauled him" Minato told Kakashi sternly.

Kakashi raised an eyebrow, immediately figuring out what exactly Minato meant, "I haven't talked about him with my ninken really, just that he's on my team. He is an Uchiha though, and they have those nincats. That might be why" he said with a shrug.

That was actually true, Kakashi never actually talked about his team, even to complain, at this point anyway.

Inwardly he was cursing. Pakkun probably figured he was doing the right thing, but the second that Obito learned that Pakkun was his ninken he'd accuse Kakashi of making the pug injure him, as Minato seemed to be thinking he had.

He hid a wince when he noticed Minato didn't seem to believe him, but the man dropped the subject, turning to tell Kushina that the ramen was excellent.

At that Kakashi's started feeling worse again. He'd never lied to Minato in all the time he'd known him. If he wanted something hidden from him he would just say that it wasn't the man's business. Even the times he'd insisted that he was fine he was telling the truth.

Did the man think he had lied to him in the past?

He stayed quiet through the rest of dinner, and after he'd put his bowl in the sink he turned to the two.

"I'm going home, I'll see you tomorrow sensei" he stated and moved past the two, called his ninken, and left. He had a good excuse for his silence though, he had rapidly become tired again, and hoped that after he woke up tomorrow he wouldn't need as much sleep as he had been.

* * *

**Minato's POV**

He was a bit confused at how abruptly Kakashi's mood had shifted. Was it because Kushina was there? Sure she teased him a little, but he didn't think Kakashi had taken anything personally.

Kakashi was tired, and he could see it in the boy's features, but he'd been trying to force himself to stay awake earlier, and had been replying to all of Minato's questions. So when Kakashi opened the door, he said a quick goodbye to Kushina and raced after the chuunin.

"I'll walk with you" he said quickly, moving to walk alongside him.

"So, I told Rin you're going to be at practice tomorrow. Will you?" Minato questioned.

Kakashi nodded, "I probably shouldn't take another day off so soon" he said, watching the path ahead instead of turning to answer Minato.

He frowned at how distant the response sounded, "You will be soon though right? To train Uuhei?" he asked. Uuhei yipped in excitement at hearing his name and Kakashi absently scratched his ear and nodded again, not verbally responding.

A few more failed questions later, they were at Kakashi's house.

"I'll see you tomorrow then" Minato told him hesitantly. Kakashi didn't answer, just let his ninken inside before following in after them. Minato opened his mouth to say something, but the door swung shut behind the boy immediately.

With a shake of his head he decided not to press Kakashi for details and started back towards his house. When he got inside he found Kushina cleaning up the mess. He winced as a bowl hit the floor and shattered.

"Um, I can do that" Minato said hesitantly, worried that she might take it the wrong way, like he was calling her clumsy or something. It would have been true though, even though she was a great ninja, once she was off duty she was the probably the clumsiest person he had ever met.

To his relief, she just turned to him and nodded, "Sorry about that. I made the mess, so I was trying to clean up after myself. So do you want to tell me what why Kashi-chan was asleep on your couch earlier, or is it something private?" she asked.

Minato sighed, "It was something private, but I don't understand, he was talking to me earlier today just fine, but then at dinner he sort of shut down again" he told her in worry.

He wasn't prepared for the spoon that flew at him and struck him in the forehead.

"You idiot. How the hell could you not tell? I didn't say anything because Kashi-chan was here at the time, and you're his sensei so you should have figured it out. I also guessed that you didn't want to be yelled at in front of your student, but it looks like you're really dense if you still don't understand" she fumed.

Minato's eyes widened, an angry Kushina usually meant a hospital visit for whomever she was mad at. "Calm down, just tell me" he requested nervously.

She continued to glare at him before taking a seat on a chair. Minato took a seat on the couch.

"You've pretty much raised Kakashi since his father's death correct? And that means you know him extremely well, and he knows that correct?" she demanded. Minato nodded, uncertain of where this was going.

"And how often does he lie to you?" was the next question.

Minato frowned, "How should I know? He's pretty good at covering himself so it's hard to tell" he said.

Kushina glared, "You really think that? Did you see his face when you pretty much accused him of lying about Obito's injuries? He was crushed that you didn't believe him. That's what was wrong with him and why he got so quiet and distant all of the sudden. You even treated it like it was an everyday sort of thing, just brushed it off like you were expecting it" she snapped.

Minato winced, that was why Kakashi was upset?

Kakashi had always had something against Obito, and he'd just figured that he'd bad-mouthed the boy enough to his ninken that the pug had taken it upon himself to attack him when he'd been given the opportunity.

It looked like that wasn't the case though, and he felt terrible. He'd just gotten Kakashi to open up to him after working for it for the past five years, and now he'd gone and ruined things again.

Making up his mind he rose from the couch, "I'll go apologize" he said immediately, heading for the door. He was stopped by Kushina racing to the door and standing in front of him.

"No you don't, he wasn't just upset, even though he got a pretty long nap he looked exhausted. Let him get some rest, and in the morning talk to him. He'll be at the training grounds early right? Talk to him then" she insisted.

* * *

**Kakashi's POV**

He brushed off his dogs' concern as he filled their bowls and then went to his room and climbed into bed tiredly, not even taking the time to brush his teeth or change. He barely had time to feel the dogs climb up on the bed with him before he was out.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The next morning at training he got started with his old routine.

His body was a lot smaller, and his chakra was a lot less than he'd had in the future, and he needed to get up to the same level a lot faster and then surpass it if he were going to be able to do everything he needed to in the future.

Of course the first thing was to get used to his smaller stature before he would be able to do anything.

He figured that wouldn't take too much time, he had been doing just fine with walking around and knowing how far he was able to reach. It would only get him into trouble if he misjudged one of his techniques, or even misjudged an enemy's technique and neither of those were really something he could afford to do.

He had just destroyed the training dummy when Minato arrived.

Kakashi frowned at that, Minato was never there before Rin. Looking around he confirmed that she had yet to arrive.

That was good, while he didn't mind Rin being there, had he not sensed her he would have been a bit worried. He'd been zoning out a lot, but to not notice someone coming, even if they were a friend rather than an enemy, could get him in a lot of trouble.

He hoped that he would adjust to everything happening soon, because he was sure his constant recollection and exhaustion were what was causing this, and if he were on a mission he could get in serious trouble for it.

"Looks like we'll have to get a new one of those" Minato commented, surveying the damage before turning to Kakashi "Come over here and take a break" the blonde requested.

Kakashi sighed, knowing where this was going. He was going to get in trouble for Obito's injuries.

Deciding to just get it over with, he moved over and sat down across from the man who had taken a seat in the grass.

"So, nice day" Minato started, and he seemed to be slightly nervous. Kakashi raised an eyebrow in response.

He was used to seeing Minato nervous, the man had been a wreck when he'd been thinking about asking out Kushina. He just wasn't used to the nervousness being directed at him. It had only been on one occasion after all.

He tensed a bit, was he getting kicked off the team for this? He had once before, and Minato had acted the same way then. He'd been in a horrible mood that day, and Obito had been getting on his nerves more than usual. Kakashi had injured him pretty badly before Minato had intervened on their spar, and then he'd said a lot of things that had definitely crossed the line, telling Obito that his parents should have drowned him at birth, and that he didn't blame Obito's parents for not wanting him.

He'd been removed from the team for over a month before Obito had requested that he return even if he wouldn't apologize.

Kakashi's pride hadn't allowed him to say that he was sorry, not that he had been at the time.

The month that he had been off the team had caused a drop in the number of missions that Team 7 could take since most required a full team of three students. That meant that Obito's only income had been decreased more than half of the amount he had normally made, and he had finally needed money so badly that he had forgone the apology.

Kakashi tensed and shifted, pushing the hand away and throwing himself backwards several feet when a hand was placed on his shoulder, hand finding his weapon's pouch and wrapping his hand around a kunai. He cursed in his mind once again for spacing out as he saw Minato look at him in surprise, hand still outstretched.

"Kakashi? Are you alright?" he asked worriedly, dropping the hand back into his lap.

Kakashi forced himself to calm down, his heart rate having sped up quickly as his body prepared for a fight. He nodded after a moment, releasing the weapon and taking his seat again.

Minato was still looking at him strangely, but thankfully it seemed like he would put aside that talk and focus on why he was there for now. Kakashi tensed again, preparing himself for the dismissal.

"Look Kakashi, I'm sorry about last night. I didn't mean to accuse you of anything. It's just that you don't seem to get along with Obito at all and I figured you'd jump at the chance to do something like that" he said. Kakashi blinked at him stupidly for a moment. That's what this was about? Relief flooded him, he was still on Minato's good side.

"I do not care for Obito's actions, but he is a teammate and injuring him will only set us back in training and missions. I would have nothing to gain" he responded.

He'd thought the same thing when he was younger of course, usually holding back in all their spars except in that one instance so they wouldn't have to put training or missions on hold so that they could get to higher ranked missions sooner. It didn't always work since Obito would still insist on fighting after he'd been injured almost too much, but in general it worked out.

Unfortunately he couldn't have a change of heart about Obito too soon, he couldn't tell Minato that he was just fine with Obito now. Obito would be suspicious of him, and he was sure that one of his teammates would start looking into things, and maybe learn about Kakashi's trip to the past, or even become suspicious enough to have him locked up as an imposter.

He was actually sort of surprised that Minato hadn't had any suspicions about him since he was acting so out of character, but figured that for now Minato was probably blaming everything on his nightmares.

"-shi" Kakashi was broken from his thoughts again, this time by Minato calling his name, a frown in place.

Apparently he'd been trying to get Kakashi's attention for a while, deciding to try and break him out of his thoughts a different way this time in case Kakashi didn't come back to his surroundings in time and attacked.

"Did you get enough sleep last night? You still seem sort of out of it. I can send you home again for today" the blonde offered.

Kakashi shook his head, while he still felt a bit tired, he could hold out until he was able to go home before he would crash again, and he wasn't feeling as tired, so he counted that as a plus. He figured whatever the effects he'd received from the time travel, they would be over soon.

"I'm fine sensei, really. Just thinking is all. Don't worry about it" he requested. He didn't want Minato worrying about little things like that.

Minato shook his head in response, "Of course I'll worry about it Kakashi. You're my student and I really should have taken you at your word rather than accuse you of lying" he insisted.

The two fell silent for a moment. "So, am I forgiven?" Minato asked sheepishly. Kakashi raised an eyebrow, he had pretty much just said that there really wasn't anything to be forgiven, but nodded anyway, knowing Minato needed it.

Minato grinned in relief, "Okay then, I'll be back in a little while with your D-rank missions for today" he said, rising and brushing grass from his clothing. Kakashi nodded, "Alright".

Soon Kakashi moved on to tree climbing. While he figured his chakra control was about at the same level, and maybe even better since he had a lot less chakra to work with now, he needed to make sure that he wouldn't over- or under-compensate the amount that he was using.

Unfortunately he was right. He could do just fine as long as he was focusing on the amount he was drawing out, but unlike in the future, he wasn't able to do this without thinking about it. It wouldn't take much, but he still would need to practice.

He moved back to the ground when Rin arrived, this was the tree that she sat under before practice started after all.

"Good morning Kakashi-kun" she greeted with a smile.

Kakashi inclined his head in greeting.

He never replied to her greeting at this time, and she was probably surprised that he even acknowledge her, but that didn't really matter much to him right now.

He would have responded verbally had he been able, but his throat had closed up, his mouth had gone dry, and he was trying to force back the tears threatening to fall at seeing her again. He hadn't seen her in nearly seventeen years, at least in person.

She was just like he remembered her, from before everything had happened.

She wore a smile on her face as she normally did in his presence, well, sometimes she wore one of exasperation or nervousness when he would fight with Obito. Her brown hair, which she had cut shorter when she'd become a chuunin, was tied in a ponytail at her back, having grown out since the Academy. Her clothing was light brown with shuriken patterns on it and instead of the backpack that she'd worn as a chuunin, she had several pouches on a belt at her waist. She had chain-mail armor just under her shirt, something that most of the new genin wouldn't think to wear, still not fully understanding all of what it meant to be a ninja.

Kakashi turned away quickly when he saw her watching him warmly.

She shouldn't be looking at him like that, even if she didn't know what he would end up causing in the future, she should at least hate him for how dismissive he was of his two teammates at this point in time.

"Kakashi-kun, were you sick yesterday? We missed you at practice" Rin spoke up again and Kakashi felt the self loathing well up again at the kindness in her voice.

He nodded, refusing to turn to her. He needed to keep his emotions under control, but even with all the time and effort he'd spent into forcing back his emotions as a child, nothing he tried seemed to be doing him any good.

"Well, I'm glad you're back. Though I'm not sure you would have enjoyed it. We had to try and conceal ourselves, we got bit whenever we got found, and Obito got kind of beat up by that dog sensei asked to train us" she said.

Kakashi winced, and hoped she didn't notice that. "He won't be training with us again" Kakashi informed her, thankful that he could keep his voice even.

"Oh, did sensei tell you about it? He was an alright teacher, he gave me some pointers on hiding, but Obito had to go to the hospital by the end of the training" Rin said, sounding a bit surprised, probably because Kakashi was holding a conversation with her.

"Pakkun mentioned something about it" he said, reaching into his pocket and digging around for some cash. Minato had said she'd given him quite a bit of her meal. Steeling himself, he turned to the girl as he pulled out the money.

"Sensei told me that you fed Pakkun some of your lunch" he said.

Rin looked at the money in surprise before looking back at him. "Pakkun's your ninken?" she asked.

Kakashi nodded, "One of them. This is for the food" he told her.

Rin smiled and shook her head, "That's not necessary. I offered it to him, and he helped me out with my training quite a bit. I wouldn't mind training with him again if he would be gentler with Obito" she told him.

Kakashi nodded, pocketing the money. This was good for now, focusing on his ninken he could do, though he would still try to keep from meeting her eye just in case.

"Sorry?" Kakashi asked when he spared a quick glance to see Rin looking at him expectantly.

"I asked about your other ninken" she said. "Urushi and Uuhei," he stated, and then described both of them a little.

Rin smiled when he was finished, "Well, if Uuhei needs more practice I'd be willing to have him track me" she offered.

Kakashi nodded, "he would probably like that. I'll ask him tonight and see what he thinks" he promised. Rin's smile widened and she nodded.

Their conversation was cut short when Minato arrived with a mission.

"It turns out there aren't many missions for teams with just two genin, so you're going to be weeding a garden, and then you'll have the rest of the day off" Minato explained.

"Then maybe I can help with training Uuhei today if that's alright" Rin commented. Kakashi nodded in response, not missing the look of disbelief on Minato's face.

* * *

Thanks for sticking with my story. I'm grateful for all the reviews and the favorites and follows. A big thanks to my beta ECDL.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter and will take the time to review it. I'm hoping to get more action in sometime in the next few chapters.


	4. New, Old Friends

Disclaimer: Naruto isn't mine, if it was I would have Naruto meet the Kyuubi sooner than he actually did.

Author's Note: Okay, so I know that people are interested in Kakashi's meeting with Obito, I'm actually putting that in the next chapter as a flashback.

Betaed by ECDL

* * *

**Minato's POV**

Minato was a bit confused about what was going on.

First he'd found that Rin and Kakashi had seemingly been talking with one another before he'd arrived at the training ground, and as they worked Kakashi was answering Rin's questions, and with more than one word responses, and politely.

He'd even asked a question or two of his own when there was a lull in conversation.

Had his dream really affected him that much? He understood why Kakashi had been a bit clingy the day before with him; Minato had been there for him after his dad's death. Kakashi had been attached to him before Sakumo's death as well, and even after, Kakashi had definitely worried about him.

Whenever he would get a mission and had been forced to leave Kakashi with a babysitter the boy wouldn't get any sleep while waiting for him to return, not that Kakashi would ever admit to it.

"Sensei" Rin called, finally getting Minato's attention, seeming to have been trying to get his attention for a little while now.

"Oh, sorry Rin, are you finished?" he asked, looking over their progress to see that they were done. He must have been thinking for longer than he thought. The garden was huge, and would have taken at least an hour to weed.

"Yes sensei. Now are we dismissed?" she asked eagerly.

Apparently Kakashi was serious about letting Rin train with Uuhei, which meant she got to spend more time with her crush. Rin also liked animals, so this would probably be a lot of fun for her, and good training so she could further learn what she needed to do to conceal herself.

Uuhei was more of a sight hound, and while he was training for scenting, he was better at seeing movement and things that were out of place rather than just relying on his nose. Tracking by scent was necessary for him to learn though, since he was primarily going to be tracking people and things that weren't close enough for him to detect by sight alone.

His other role on the team was chasing down his prey, being the fastest because of his longer legs. Unfortunately for him he wasn't as good as he could be since he was too large and heavy to move through trees like Pakkun and Urushi were able to, but he more than made up for it with his more unique skills.

"Alright, I'll see about getting Obito to come tomorrow. Then you've got a day off on Friday because I need to take Kakashi to get his birthday present" Minato said.

Rin was startled by that and turned to look at Kakashi in question. Unfortunately he wasn't able to respond, he was busy looking at Minato in surprise.

Minato sighed and shook his head, "One of these years you're going to remember your birthday. Now I was going to keep it a secret until Friday, but Inuzaku-san said that you should have what exactly you're looking for in mind, so I'm getting you two more ninken. This time though, you're picking them out" Minato told him.

The expression Kakashi wore at that was a bit strange. Was that relief? Pushing that aside he dismissed them.

As he watched them leave he frowned. After yesterday he had kept a closer eye on Kakashi. He seemed to be doing alright, better than he had in the past several years in fact.

The abrupt personality change was bothering him a little. However, there was something he was more worried about. Kakashi didn't seem to be using his left eye much. It didn't seem like the boy even noticed, but he was constantly closing his eye as he worked that morning, and even when the two had spoken the day before he'd done the same thing. He didn't seem to be in any pain though, from what Minato could tell.

* * *

**Rin's POV**

Rin was sort of worried about Kakashi. Sure, she was glad that he was now speaking to her, but this was definitely out of character for him, especially how he kept turning away from her. Several times she'd seen his eyes become misty, as if he were about to start crying.

That was part of the reason that she was glad that she could help him out with his ninken. While she would love to spend time with him, just for the sake of being around him, she hoped that she could find out what exactly was wrong, or at least cheer him up.

Minato had surprised her when he'd mentioned Kakashi's birthday. Kakashi hadn't been in the Academy with her class for very long before he'd been moved to a higher level since he was too advanced for the introductory class.

Also, at the time she hadn't been interested in him. She was only four, and unlike several of the other girls who were declaring their undying love for some of the guys in the class, Kakashi included, she didn't think about that sort of thing and they were definitely too young for it. When she'd been placed on his team was when she first developed an interest in him. He was a bit cold to her and Obito, but was very skilled and took being a ninja seriously, something that she admired.

Apparently she wasn't the only one who was surprised by Minato's announcement. To a degree she sort of understood why Kakashi wasn't really all that interested in his birthday. For one he was extremely focused on his ninja career and birthdays played no role in that. But for another, she knew that Kakashi didn't have a family to celebrate it with.

Rin's mother had surprised her when she'd mentioned Kakashi was on her team and had been slightly worried about meeting him because of that. The woman had told her all about Kakashi's father. How after Kakashi's mother died when he was just a baby, Sakumo had raised him on his own. Then the man had gone and caused a highly important mission to fail in order to save his teammates.

Rin had been shocked when her mother had informed her that the man had thankfully realized that he was no longer fit to be a ninja and killed himself.

Rin's mother was a civilian and usually held ninja in high regard; she had supported Rin's decision to become one, and even encouraged her. However, that didn't extend to Sakumo apparently, or Kakashi. She had warned that if Kakashi was anything like his father, that Rin had to be careful. She needed to make sure a mission succeeded no matter what. There was honor in dying for your village, but not in failing a mission.

Rin disagreed completely. Had she been in Sakumo's situation, she might have done things a bit differently in regards to leaving Kakashi alone, but she would have done everything in her power to make sure her teammates survived.

She didn't see honor in abandoning comrades just for recognition in completing a mission. That being said, she would have a very hard decision if the mission meant the difference between Konoha falling and her teammates living. She just hoped she'd never be placed in that situation.

The two had walked in silence to Kakashi's house. Rin would have liked to talk to him some more, but unlike earlier, he seemed to be deep in thought and she didn't want to interrupt. They reached his home relatively quickly.

"You know Pakkun" Kakashi pointed out when he let her inside the house. The pug raised a paw in greeting "Yo" he said.

"This is Urushi" Kakashi indicated a slightly large dog. Rin wasn't sure what kind it was, but he was probably a mix of things. The dog gave a short nod,

"Pleased meet you" he said. She was a bit surprised. His voice had a slight growl to it and his eyes looked mean, but he seemed pretty polite.

"And this one's Uuhei" Kakashi pushed the greyhound back to the ground as he bounced around excitedly.

"Hi Rin. Hi Hi" he greeted, tail wagging happily as he turned to her. He was a lot bigger than the other two, probably just over a foot shorter than Kakashi by her estimation as the two stood side by side.

"Hello" Rin replied with a smile.

Kakashi then took several minutes explaining to Uuhei what exactly the training was going to be. It seemed like he didn't understand as much speech as Pakkun and Urushi so Kakashi made sure he understood.

She was grateful that Kakashi instructed the dog not to bite her when he discovered her. Understandably that wasn't how he'd been training in the practice hunts, but those teeth were huge.

Then Kakashi turned to her. For some reason he wasn't meeting her gaze. He had been doing this the entire day. Right now he was staring over her shoulder.

"It's pretty self-explanatory, but do a mix of hiding in trees and on the ground since he really can't reach you in the trees. Pakkun will be following behind, I'm going to stay here since Uuhei's test won't include me and he won't work as hard if I'm there since I can track you as well. Record how long it takes him to find you each time, and where you were hiding. Generally we stop after ten successful finds, but if you want to keep going then you can, just take a break every hour and make sure Uuhei gets back here for some water since it's so hot out. If he doesn't find you in twenty minutes, then call for a restart. If he starts taking a lot longer on consecutive hunts to find you then stop since there won't be much point in it once he starts to get worn out" Kakashi explained.

"And once you're done I'll let you touch my paw pads. And I'll tell you what you need to work on for concealing yourself" Pakkun added.

Rin smiled at that, she found the paw pad thing kind of cute, though definitely meant for younger children. She had the strange thought that maybe it had worked with Kakashi when he was little before dismissing it.

"I'd be very grateful if you would" she told him instead of voicing her thoughts. She looked at Kakashi who was scratching Uuhei's ears as Urushi pawed at his arm. The boy turned and ruffled the tuft of hair sticking up on the dog's head.

Rin held back a grin, even if Kakashi was being nice and talking with her, she doubted he'd take kindly to her mentioning how much he seemed to care for his ninken.

Kakashi turned to her, "I'll let Uuhei out in five minutes so you have time to hide. Anywhere on or off the property is fine except for restricted areas like the Forest of Death and the clan compounds" he told her, it seemed somewhat hurried in her opinion.

Rin nodded, "Alright, I'll see you later then" she told him and took off.

* * *

**Kakashi's POV**

Kakashi tried to hurry through his explanation with Rin. He couldn't with Uuhei since the dog couldn't really fully understand everything he was trying to say. The entire time they'd been weeding the garden, Kakashi had been constantly chanting, _"Just a little while longer" _in his mind.

He wasn't sure he would have been able to keep from bursting into tears, but he'd managed, though there were a few close calls where he had to start running through a list of all the techniques he'd known the first time around to distract himself. Of course he still knew the techniques, but his chakra capacity and chakra control weren't at a level where he could use them effectively. They would be much too dangerous.

When they'd finished their mission he'd agreed to let her come along to his house even thought that wasn't the best idea, because she had seemed so excited.

He was glad when Rin had left the house. Holding his tears in for a bit longer, he finally let Uuhei out, with Pakkun close behind. Had Uuhei seen his tears he would have insisted on staying with Kakashi.

Finally he turned to his room, deciding that he couldn't hold them back any longer. He made it partway there before Urushi raced ahead of him into the room, jumping up onto the bed and turning to him critically.

"Cry –Shi" he ordered. That was all it took and soon Kakashi was hugging Urushi and crying into his fur while Urushi tried to comfort him the best he could.

* * *

**Minato's POV**

"Rin?" Minato asked in confusion when the doorbell rang. She had never been to his house before, and didn't even know where it was as far as he knew.

"Sorry sensei. I asked Pakkun for directions" she told him. Minato was still frowning at her, she looked upset. Had something happened with Kakashi? He moved back to allow her entrance to the house.

"What's this about?" he asked. Rin fidgeted a little with the hem of her shirt as she collected herself.

"What's wrong with Kakashi?" she finally questioned. Minato winced, hoping that he'd been wrong.

"What do you mean?" Minato asked slowly. Rin bit her lip, "I was helping with training, and I got done about fifteen minutes ago…" she started.

_Flashback in Rin's POV_

_She knocked on the door, but there was no answer on the other side. She'd brought Uuhei back, as well as Pakkun after half an hour because she was worried that Uuhei was panting way too much to continue and Pakkun had suggested he take a break. _

_She frowned when after a short while there was no response, and slowly pushed the door open, finding it unlocked. _

_"Kakashi-kun?" she called out. Behind her both Uuhei and Pakkun's ears twitched and the greyhound raced ahead of her through the kitchen area to the hallway, and then into one of the rooms, scrambling to get traction on the wood flooring. _

_"You should head home. I'll give you pointers tomorrow" Pakkun said beside her. _

_"What's going on?" she asked in confusion. Pakkun's ears twitched again. _

_"It's nothing you should concern yourself with Rin-chan. Just go home" he requested firmly. She'd been about to ask more questions when there was a crash in the room. Ignoring Pakkun's calls to stop, she ran towards the sound._

_As soon as she got a good look into the room she figured out exactly why Pakkun was trying to force her out. Kakashi was sitting on the bed wiping his eyes. She could see that they were red rimmed and his face had splotches from his tears. _

_She backed away, trying to be silent. Finally she made it to the kitchen and found Pakkun sitting there still, ears drooped. _

_"You should go home" he repeated, looking back and up at her sadly. _

_"What's wrong with Kakashi-kun?" she asked. _

_Pakkun just shook his head, "You shouldn't get involved" he replied._

_Rin frowned, Kakashi never really showed emotions other than exasperation with Obito and sometimes Rin. Something had upset him enough to make him act like this, and she wanted to help. _

_"I should at least tell sensei" she argued, knowing she wouldn't be as much help as Minato would be, since their sensei had known Kakashi for much longer. Pakkun sighed, "The pup wouldn't want that, but you're right, it's for the best that he knows. He might be able to calm him down" he agreed._

"And he didn't notice you?" Minato asked, heading towards the door as he spoke.

"No. Sensei, what's happening with him?" Rin asked behind him pleadingly. Minato paused and turned, knowing that the smile he hoped was reassuring ended up being more of a grimace, "I'm not sure Rin, but he'll be fine" he told her, hoping that he was telling the truth, before heading out the door.

She started to follow behind him and he shook his head, "Go home Rin, I'll see you tomorrow and hopefully bring Kakashi with me" he said, sort of apologetic because he was leaving her out.

Rin frowned, "I guess," she agreed hesitantly, "but make sure that he's okay" she pleaded, before racing off.

"I hope I can Rin" he muttered when she was out of earshot, continuing on his way there. The door was unlocked when he reached it and he entered, making his way past Pakkun, even as the pug started to try to explain things, and into Kakashi's room.

"Kakashi?" he asked. The three in the room looked over at him.

"I'm sorry" Kakashi muttered as Minato drew closer, sniffling and trying to collect himself. Apparently Minato's presence wouldn't allow for that, and as he had done before, Kakashi launched himself at the man, hugging him again.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry" he mumbled again and again as he started to cry again. "Shhh, you're alright Kakashi. You haven't done anything wrong" Minato tried to calm him, though it didn't seem to be working. Kakashi continued to apologize over and over.

What exactly was he apologizing for? The only thing he could think of would be that he was breaking the shinobi code by crying, but Minato had always told him that several parts of the code were more of suggestions rather than something to rigidly adhere to, and the crying one wasn't applicable around comrades when there was no danger.

Besides, Minato was sure he was apologizing whatever he was crying about, and that wouldn't make any sense. Was he apologizing about Obito's injuries? Minato was sure he hadn't been lying, and Kakashi should have accepted his apology so there shouldn't be any more discussion on that.

He would have to wait until Kakashi calmed down, he figured, before he would be able to learn what was upsetting his student so much. That took a while, about half an hour later Kakashi had moved away, apologizing, this time probably for using Minato for comfort. Minato reached out and ruffled his hair.

"What's bothering you kid?" he asked softly. Kakashi just shook his head, not responding and refusing to meet his gaze.

* * *

**Kakashi's POV**

Minato stayed for several hours after Kakashi had moved away. His tears had stopped, but he figured it was more due to not having anymore to cry.

He wished Minato would stop asking questions though, he couldn't answer any of them and it was making him feel a lot worse. But more than that he wished he could keep himself calm. His emotions were all over the place since he'd come back and he just wanted everything to go back to how it had before, him with his team and nothing getting in the way.

His ninken had left very reluctantly after he'd insisted on being left alone, but Minato wouldn't comply with the request. He actually figured his ninken would have refused as well had Minato not been there.

"Kakashi, do you remember Mari-san?" Minato finally asked hesitantly after a long silence.

Kakashi nodded, "What about her?" he questioned. Mari had been the psychologist he'd been sent to after his father's death. He hadn't cared for her. She'd treated him like a child and hadn't helped at all in his opinion.

"I know you didn't like dealing with her, but if you'd be willing to give her another chance, or even would be willing to see someone else I think that it would help" Minato told him uncertainly.

Kakashi flinched back from him at that, "You think I'm crazy" he stated.

Minato quickly shook his head, "I don't Kakashi. I'm just worried about you. This isn't like you at all and you know that all I've ever wanted for you is for you to be safe and happy" Minato assured him.

Kakashi mentally disagreed, this was almost exactly as he'd been in the future minus the emotional outbursts, though he supposed Minato didn't know this version of him yet. It was true though, that Minato would do pretty much anything he could to look after him.

"They're civilians" Kakashi argued.

While he wasn't going to refuse the request from his sensei, he wasn't going to go to counseling with civilians, they just couldn't understand ninja.

Minato nodded, "I'm aware, and I have an idea, but you're going to have to hear me out" he said. Kakashi's eyes narrowed slightly, wondering where this was going since Minato didn't outright say anything.

"Kakashi, you know of the Yamanaka clan correct?" Minato questioned.

Kakashi looked up at the blonde sitting on the end of his bed with a frown and gave a short nod. It wasn't like he could ever forget the Yamanaka clan. Even discounting everything they'd done in the Fourth Shinobi War, he'd had a run in with them as a younger child and nearly made himself an enemy of the entire clan.

"Do you know Yamanaka Inoichi?" Minato prompted. Kakashi's frown deepened, he didn't know how far back it had been since he'd met the man in this timeline, or if he had met him. Thankfully Minato took his frown as confusion and started to explain.

"He's an apprentice in the Torture and Interrogation Department. Right now he's working in the hospital as a psychologist part-time, as well as from his home. He doesn't charge ninja to talk to him, and I think that you would benefit from it" Minato suggested.

Kakashi shrugged, "But he _is_ a Yamanaka" he stressed.

That much he remembered, he hadn't been comfortable around them until Inoichi had approached him in the future and requested that he stop holding back on Ino in training when she'd started working under him, that the Yamanaka clan did not blame him for what he had done in the past and that he actually had their support.

He didn't think that was the case now though, since it had been nearly twenty years in the future when the clan head had approached him.

"Yes, he is, but the past is the past" Minato told him firmly.

"Inori?" Kakashi asked. Minato winced slightly, "I'm not sure about her, she's definitely not one of your biggest fans, but that has nothing to do with Inoichi. He's fair Kakashi" Minato insisted.

"You're sure?" Kakashi asked.

Minato looked at him in surprise, "Yes I'm sure. You'll do it?" he asked.

Kakashi nodded, "You want me to, so I will. I don't have to stay if I don't like it right?" he wondered, though he knew the answer. Minato wasn't forcing him into this, and he wouldn't force him to stay with it.

Minato shook his head, "Of course you don't. You don't have to share anything that makes you uncomfortable, and Inoichi would never share anything you tell him unless it would put someone else or yourself in danger" he explained.

Kakashi nodded again, "When?" he asked.

Minato shrugged, "Soon, I'll let you know once I find out" Minato promised and ruffled Kakashi's hair. "Now come on, let's get something to eat  
he insisted. Kakashi just nodded and followed him out.

He didn't really mean to ignore Minato as he ate, but he was thinking.

The incident with the Yamanaka clan had been just after he'd turned five, and had been removed from his records for some reason. A girl in his class, Yamanaka Inori, if he remembered correctly, was a cousin of Inoichi and his classmate at the time, had cornered him for some reason on the playground after school one day, and he'd put her in the hospital.

She'd slipped into a coma, and the clan had demanded Kakashi be thrown out of the Academy for the attack, or at least barred from graduating as he was close to doing in the next couple of months.

While the issue was still being investigated, Kakashi had been attacked constantly, by the Yamanaka, some Akimichi, and even some Nara. The three clans had gotten close after first Ino-Shika-Cho team had been formed and saw the attack as something against them as well. Had Minato not been there he would have been killed.

Inori had woken up a couple of weeks after he'd hospitalized her, and the attacks and threats had abruptly stopped. He'd never figured out the reason for that, but was just glad that he didn't have to deal with them anymore. He'd steered clear of the three clans after that point, still a bit wary.

In the future when he'd trained the second generation Ino-Shika-Cho, all individually for a short period, and even fought alongside some of the clan members there had been no time for hostilities, so he hadn't really considered them a threat at the time.

Besides, so many of those clan members had been lost in the Kyuubi attack that he wasn't in as much danger as he had been before. Of course Inoichi telling him all was forgiven had helped as well.

He wasn't sure he wanted counseling. He had been to routine sessions after extremely dangerous and stressful missions in the future, but those weren't anything too personal.

Minato wanted him to do it though, so he figured he owed it to the blonde. He'd refused counseling when he was younger, and demanded to be dropped from it as soon as he'd become a genin, if he went back to counseling he would be making things up to the blonde a bit more.

* * *

**Puppy's POV**

His ears had been flattened against his head since that morning and he'd been shaking since the other dogs had woken up around him.

While sometime in the middle of the night there had been a rare lull in noise from the other dogs surrounding them, now they were as loud as usual. Around him his litter played excitedly.

He stayed away from them the best he could. They had tried to pull him into a game before, and he'd gotten angry and bit several of them.

He had a couple of scars from where they had retaliated and it was only because of the human that had caged them that he'd gotten off so lucky.

His eyes widened as hands reached down and grabbed him.

Whirling around he snapped his teeth shut before he even saw his attacker. A scream made him release his hold as he flinched back in pain, and he fell several inches to the ground. Luckily he hadn't been too high.

The small human wailed and ran out of the cage that held him. The puppy had been about to make a break for it when the cage was slammed shut.

The human outside the cage had been there every day to look in on them, his captives, and he barked something at the puppy viciously before leaving. While he had kept the puppy from worse injury, he wasn't a friend by any means.

Looking around he made his way to the back corner of his prison, turning so that nobody could sneak up on him from behind again, and gazing out warily as the humans made their ways back and forth, sometimes pressing their faces up against his cage.

The smaller ones were the loudest, shrieking and whining at the bigger humans. Two of his number had already been removed from the cage and the rest had been paid a great deal of attention by the humans, even him. Fortunately that ended quickly as soon as they met his teeth.

He refocused his attention as the door opened again. This time a medium-sized human entered the cage, wearing something over his mouth, unlike the other humans, and his fur was sticking up on his head in a strange manner. He found it strange how humans only seemed to have fur on their heads, the rest of the fur covering them didn't seem to be attached.

The medium-sized human smelled of dog, not like the kennel's dogs.

The dog scent he carried was of dogs that the puppy had never smelled before. Behind him were two other humans, though these were taller. The woman had a lot of wavy fur, and the man had short spiky fur.

Those two stayed outside of the cage though, and the puppy focused his attention on the medium-sized human as he knelt, allowing the puppy's siblings to crowd around him.

When he caught the boy's gaze on him his ears tightened against his head even more, and when the hand got too close to him he snapped his teeth shut around it quickly, bracing himself for the pain.

No matter what, whenever he bit someone he got a scream that hurt his ears a great deal, or got struck by the human. It was better than being forced to deal with the treatment his litter received though, so he continued to react in the same manner.

This human was different from the others. He carefully shifted, picking up the puppy with his other front paw and settling him into his lap before gently prying open his jaw.

The boy barked something in a soft voice to him and the puppy stared up at him as the boy's paw carefully moving down his back. His wonder was cut short as a scream sounded from the next cage and he snarled, lashing out and getting the boy's arm this time.

Once again, he was carefully removed, but this time instead of being left in the boy's lap he was picked up.

The puppy yelped in surprise, whimpering at the sudden change in height. He'd been dropped several times, some heights more painful than others, and this height would definitely hurt. No matter how much he struggled though, the boy did not release him and he found himself being set down in another cage as the medium human turned his attention to the dog present in that one.

This other dog was a bit bigger than him and definitely not with the same build. He didn't seem to mind the human's observations though, and soon the human woman had appeared outside of that cage with two smaller cages.

He snarled in response, tucking his tail between his legs as he watched them warily.

He'd been in one of those before, along with three of his litter mates. It had been hot and crowded. He'd had trouble breathing as he was pushed into the corner by two of the stronger dogs and had been carried in it until they had arrived at this place.

When the boy's hand came this time though, he wasn't able to sink his teeth in before the hand had moved around and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and from there he was forced into the cage.

No amount of barking, growling, or whimpering seemed to make the humans want to release him as he was carried towards the outside with the other puppy in a different cage, that one was sniffing at his surroundings eagerly, seemingly not as upset as he was.

The humans barked at one another as they walked, the medium one kept looking into the cages at them.

Soon they were at another big cage place. At least that's what the puppy figured. It was bigger than the one he'd just been removed from, but he could smell and hear the other dogs nearby, most likely inside.

His cage had been the only one that the medium human had been carrying at that point, but the other puppy was handed to him as well and soon the boy brought them inside.

The other two humans left.

He was set down on the floor near the doorway and so was the other puppy, but unlike the other puppy, he wasn't let out.

There were more dogs here, but they weren't in cages. They crowded around the other puppy, sniffing him and getting introduced.

The one closest to his size made his way over and the puppy growled and snarled at him until he backed off. Even though he was in the cage, he could have nipped the other pretty hard had he gotten close enough.

The medium human had just sat there while the dogs introduced themselves, but after barking something at the small dog, and the small dog seemingly understanding the human, he grabbed the puppy's cage and picked him up again.

Thankfully the puppy didn't have to get too worked up because a moment later they were in another room and the cage door opened. The puppy quickly raced out, turning to look at the human warily.

Instead of doing anything to him though, the human just sat down on the floor, not even looking at him.

* * *

**Kakashi's POV**

He was glad that he had found the two ninken he'd received at this point in time.

Kakashi had been worried that Minato might decide to postpone his trip to the animal shelter because of how he'd been acting, and he felt guilty about forgetting his birthday. He'd had a problem with remembering it most years since he really didn't care for it, but it was the date that he'd gotten all of his ninken except for Pakkun and Biscuit.

The puppy he was currently shut in a room with, the gray puppy with a white underbelly and a brown spike of hair on his head, was Shiba.

He had nearly not gotten this one since he'd been bitten the first time as well.

It had taken some convincing from Tsume to finally agree to adopt him. She had sensed that Shiba would be a great addition to his team once he was trained a bit, and he was one of the healthiest puppies there, excluding breeding since they didn't have the mutt's papers on record.

It turned out that Shiba had extremely sensitive hearing and had been on edge the entire time he had been in the animal shelter due to the loudness around him and lashed out because of it.

After a couple weeks with Kakashi he had calmed down and had soon made friends with his other ninken. It had taken a while though, none of the ninken had liked that Shiba had attacked him on their meeting and it had taken a bit of convincing to make them accept the puppy.

The other puppy that he'd left with his ninken, was Bull. He was very laid back, and had taken to Kakashi from the start. Of course Kakashi would have to spend time getting the dark brown mastiff used to him again, but he hoped to gain Shiba's trust quicker than last time.

The puppy had gotten pretty sick from refusal to eat because he had always been so cautious, as well as lack of sleep since every little noise seemed to wake him since he was so high-strung. Kakashi hadn't been as knowledgeable the first time around and because of that, Shiba had suffered.

So for now, Kakashi had decided to close himself in with Shiba for a few hours to get the dog used to his presence, and then gradually try to coax him over.

He would have the dog sleep in his room as well, even if he made a mess on the carpet.

The little puppy wouldn't attack him, even if he could jump up onto the bed. He was afraid of humans after everything he'd gone through.

First he'd been given up, along with his siblings, then he'd been put in a place with sound that was constantly hurting his ears and making it impossible for him to relax even a little, and because he was so stressed he would bite people, and then their reactions always ended up causing him more harm.

Minato had informed him after training the day before, after Rin and Obito had left, that he had spoken with Inoichi.

The future clan head had agreed to meet with him, and at his house, knowing that Kakashi wouldn't want to meet Inoichi at a place he'd never been before, and where he would be trapped with the man.

At his house he had his ninken, so he would feel safer there and Inoichi seemed to have figured on that. He sighed, hoping that everything would work out, especially since the mind walker was likely to figure out that he was lying about things.

Kakashi had five days off of training and he was going to work with Uuhei for several hours on his training, and get Bull and Shiba used to him because that was specifically why he'd been given time off after all.

Well, probably not entirely. The first time around he'd been given two days.

After the interaction he'd had with Obito the day before Minato had thought it best that he take more time off than he'd originally planned.

* * *

Okay, so next chapter we get to figure out what happened with the Yamanaka clan, and more importantly, what happened with Obito.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and please review.


	5. Allies and Friends

Disclaimer: Naruto isn't mine. If it was then anime fight scenes wouldn't last like ten episodes.

Beta-ed by ECDL

* * *

**Inoichi's POV**

Inoichi didn't get surprised by much, it was difficult after all he'd seen in his profession, but he couldn't deny that Minato had definitely surprised him when he'd approached to ask him about working with Hatake Kakashi a couple of days prior.

He personally didn't have anything against the Hatake heir, and neither did anyone else in his clan aside from his cousin Inori. The thing that surprised him was that Kakashi still avoided people of the Yamanaka and Akimichi clan from before.

Even after they'd stopped attacking him and had extended an apology, it seemed he didn't trust any of them, and so Inoichi should have been one of the last people he'd ever want to talk to.

The Akimichi had taken a lot of offense to Kakashi's actions, and had immediately joined in on attacking him out of loyalty to the Yamanaka clan.

True, the Nara had been attacking him as well, but they hadn't actively sought to kill him like the other two clans had and so Kakashi seemed to be at least somewhat alright around them, though Inoichi doubted they were his ideal company.

The only thing he could postulate at this time was that the boy must definitely need to talk to someone if he'd agreed to talk to a Yamanaka of all people.

In addition to talking about whatever Kakashi needed to talk about, Inoichi hoped to speak to him about the incident today as well.

The Yamanaka and Akimichi clans, while not as large as the Uchiha or Hyuuga clans, were made up of a lot of members and if Kakashi was stressed out about something then this would definitely lighten the load on him, if he didn't have avoid so many people.

Currently he was walking towards the Hatake home.

He'd been informed by Minato that Kakashi had been given five days off of training to work with his new ninken and was at home at the moment.

That hadn't been the entire reason, Minato had confided. Apparently the Uchiha on the team had said some pretty terrible things and figured Kakashi would prefer more time off just to spend with his ninken.

Of course, Inoichi wasn't sure how much that mattered considering Minato had ordered the Uchiha not to return to training until he apologized, but Minato knew Kakashi better than he did so he didn't comment.

He knocked on the door and waited, observing the area around them.

The house wasn't taken care of much from the looks of things, but he figured that while Kakashi strived for perfection in training, according to his file, he didn't hold all aspects of his life to the same degree.

The door was apparently locked, because he heard the click as the lock was undone, just before Kakashi answered the door.

"Yamanaka-san" Kakashi greeted cautiously.

"Just Inoichi is fine, would you be alright with me just using Kakashi?" he asked as he stepped inside when Kakashi pushed the door open further and stepped back.

Kakashi nodded, "That's fine" he responded as he shut the door and crouched to scoop up the dark brown dog that had made his way over and was pushing at the door flap Inoichi saw had been installed for a pretty large dog.

Kakashi turned to him as he scratched the dog's ears and it panted happily.

"We can talk in the living room" he said before showing him to a room just off the side of the kitchen. There was a couch and a chair. That would have confused Inoichi a bit, but he could tell they were both pretty old and worn, probably from when Sakumo had still been alive.

On the couch a light brown dog with a blue vest and a forehead protector around his neck, was sleeping. As soon as Kakashi entered the room his ears perked up.

"Yamanaka" he stated, glaring directly at Inoichi as soon as he caught sight of the brunette.

"Yamanaka Inoichi, pleased to meet you," Inoichi greeted. While he had initially thought it strange to introduce himself to an animal, he had gotten used to it relatively quickly, especially after spending a bit of time around Inuzuka Tsume's ninken Kuromaru the other day. Like Kuromaru, this dog wasn't impressed in the least with him.

"Hurt –shi and I kill you" the dog growled before rising and moving to occupy one side of the couch instead of spreading out across the entire thing as he had done before.

Inoichi raised an eyebrow, but wasn't too put out by the threat.

He'd done a bit of research on Kakashi before coming here, and because he knew Kakashi was on good terms with the Inuzuka heiress, he had spoken with Tsume about the boy, which was how he'd ended up meeting her ninken.

It was strange to hear Tsume talk so respectfully about anyone, especially someone below her in rank and outside of her clan. Apparently Kakashi was highly skilled at working with ninken, and had impressed her a great deal.

She had even said she would be willing to give Kakashi a dog that her clan had bred because it would be in good hands. Hell, she had even mentioned that it was a shame Kakashi hadn't been born an Inuzuka with his skill.

According to her, though she hadn't really seemed to want to admit to it, Kakashi was able to bond with his dogs better than even most members of her clan. They were exceedingly loyal to him, and Kakashi had even been able to train them to work independently.

Unlike the Inuzuka that had nin partners and always fought side by side in battle, the older two dogs at least, were highly intelligent and capable of forming plans on their own. She had joked that if they were human, they would be members of the Nara clan.

"Sorry about that" Kakashi said sheepishly as he moved to the couch so Inoichi headed for the chair, "No problem, I understand" he assured the boy.

As soon as they were both seated there was a slightly awkward silence as Kakashi shifted in his seat nervously, even as the dog in his lap tried to make himself comfortable. From what he'd been told this had to be Bull, one of the puppies Kakashi had just gotten.

Inoichi was the first to break the silence, putting Kakashi out of his misery.

"Alright, now usually this is going to be whatever you want to talk about, but I figured I should sort of clear things up if you're okay with it" Inoichi told him.

Kakashi frowned, "Clear things up?" he questioned. Inoichi nodded, "About the attacks from my clan when you were younger" he clarified.

Kakashi's frown deepened, "I understand. Inori is a relative of yours and I did harm her a great deal. Besides, I haven't been attacked since becoming a genin, and I guess all the charges against me were dropped"

Now it was Inoichi's turn to frown.

What exactly was the boy talking about? True, they had stopped almost exactly to the day that Kakashi had become a genin.

Inori had woken up from her coma around that time and had been upset that she hadn't been able to take her final exams to get to the next level of the Academy, and had also explained what exactly had happened between the two.

However, Kakashi was acting as though all of this was his fault, and as though he didn't exactly know why the attacks had stopped or why the Yamanaka clan was no longer trying to make him lose standing.

"Of course the charges were dropped after we found out that you hurt her in self-defense. My father didn't explain this to you when he came to talk to you?" Inoichi asked.

Kakashi's expression changed to one of confusion. "Self-defense? And I've never spoken with Yamanaka-sama" he answered.

Inoichi sat back in the chair. He'd been leaning forward to read Kakashi's emotions, it was a bit harder because of the mask and reading emotions around eyes was a lot more subtle of an art so he had to be a bit closer. As far as he was concerned Kakashi was telling the truth as far as he knew it.

That didn't make any sense though. Inori wouldn't have lied to the clan about what she had done in this case. She had developed a deep hatred towards the young Hatake, and would have done pretty much anything she could have to discredit him. No, Inori had definitely told the truth when she'd told them why Kakashi had nearly killed her.

_Inori's Memory_

_She had just gotten out of class and run out to see the boy she'd developed a crush on. He had been in her class for a short while before he had been moved into a higher grade and was just a little younger than she was. _

_Now the only time she got to see him was when they were given breaks and after class. As luck would have it, she found him around the back of the Academy and had rapidly approached him. _

_"Hello Kakashi-kun" she greeted, blushing a bit when he glanced over at her. He didn't respond though, just turned and continued on his way. She pouted and caught up with him. _

_"So Kakashi-kun, I was wondering if we could maybe train sometime" she suggested. While she would have rather done something else, she knew Kakashi liked to train and after she showed him how good she was she hoped he would ask her out._

_Kakashi paused, looking towards her in a bored manner. "I wouldn't train with someone so weak" he told her bluntly. _

_Her eyes began to water and she stared after him as he started to walk away. _

_"This is because your father died isn't it?" she demanded. That got his attention and he turned to her quickly, eyes narrowing. _

_"You won't let yourself be happy, so maybe you should just forget about it" she told him, starting through some hand seals. She'd read a lot about this technique. It allowed the user to view and affect a person's memories. All she had to do was find the memories Kakashi had of his father being dead and erase them; then he would be happy. _

_She'd gotten to the last hand seal when she screamed in pain. Kakashi had interrupted her technique by slamming his foot into her stomach and throwing her back. From there the pain only increased and her vision blurred until everything went black._

_End Memory_

Kakashi was lucky that she hadn't had time to complete the technique.

Inori had been six and Kakashi had just turned five. Even though Inori was smart, she really didn't have much skill with techniques, and what she had tried would have, at the very least, stunted his mental development, and at the age of five, he would have never progressed any further.

The worst, and the most likely scenario, she would have shattered his mind completely. Had she succeeded by some miracle, Kakashi would have had to go through the process of losing his father all over again, and this time he wouldn't have had any idea why.

There was also the issue of using a technique on an ally without permission. That was why, after Inori had explained everything, she had been punished even further for her actions, especially since she had still insisted that she had been doing the right thing.

For all of these reasons, Inoichi was confused. Kakashi had had every right to do what he had done and the clan fully supported his decision.

Inoichi's father had even spoken with Tsume, who had been running the clan store, about him paying for all of Kakashi's supplies for his ninken in apology for both Inori's and the clan's actions. Both the Yamanaka and the Akimichi had also supported Kakashi's promotion to Chuunin when his qualifications had been called in to question due to his young age.

Kakashi was saying that he didn't know about this. Well, of course he probably didn't, because otherwise he probably wouldn't be so wary of the clans. The better question was, why didn't he know? Kakashi hadn't spoken to the Yamanaka clan head it seemed, and Inoichi would have to confirm that with his father later.

"Well, we don't blame you in the least for what happened. Now, what was it that you wanted to talk about?" he questioned, getting back to the main reason he was there. While he would have liked to explain things further, he needed to speak with his father about some things.

Kakashi fidgeted again, "Minato-sensei wanted me to talk about my nightmare and how I keep crying" Kakashi mumbled.

It was obvious to Inoichi that he was embarrassed by both of them.

"We don't have to yet if you don't want to. You could just talk about you, maybe tell me about your team" he suggested. He figured that would be a good start since he'd learned what had happened with Obito.

Originally he'd been planning to talk about Kakashi's ninken which would have worked as well, but figured that he wouldn't learn much that he didn't already know about him, even if it would get the boy to relax some since he was so tense.

Kakashi nodded in agreement, looking slightly relieved.

* * *

**Kakashi's POV**

He'd thought that it would have been close to torture to deal with the future clan head, but it had just started out slightly uncomfortable and he'd gotten used to the brunette's presence quickly.

Inoichi didn't talk much after Kakashi got started, just prompted him onto another line of talk when he would run out of things to say on a particular subject. The only danger that he sensed was when he had to avoid talking about anything that hadn't happened yet.

Thankfully most of the stuff had happened before his personality had changed and he'd started to pay attention to at least Rin, after Obito had died. That meant that he had very little to remember since he'd ignored them so much.

"And I was wondering about what happened at practice two days ago" Inoichi stated offhandedly when Kakashi had run out of things to say about Obito, he'd tried to convey annoyance towards the Uchiha and hoped that Inoichi bought it.

Kakashi winced, "It wasn't really anything" he mumbled, shifting uncomfortably.

Inoichi raised an eyebrow, Kakashi inwardly sighed, that was the look that Ino had always given him when he wouldn't give her the full story about something she really wanted to know.

"Minato stated that it seemed to be the first time that Obito was actually meaning to attack you rather than just rile you up" Inoichi stated. "Probably" Kakashi said in agreement.

"So can you tell me what exactly happened? If it makes you uncomfortable you can refuse" Inoichi tried.

Sighing in resignation, and knowing that Inoichi would get it out of him eventually anyway, he nodded, "It really wasn't much. We insult each other and argue all the time. Besides, it's not like he knew" he defended, before starting to explain what had happened.

_Flashback_

_Kakashi had once again arrived early to train, working on his chakra control once again since the training dummy still hadn't been replaced. He was getting a bit better but figured he would start on water walking as soon as he could. _

_He supposed he could try the stream next to him, but since the water was moving quickly he might fall in and the water was starting to get cold at this time. He'd rather find still water and get up to par on that before he moved on to moving water, otherwise he'd have to cut his practice short to warm up._

"_Kakashi-kun, good morning" Rin called as soon as he reached the base of the tree again. _

_He turned and nodded in her direction. She soon reached him, "How are you today?" she asked him with a smile, but he could sense underlying worry. _

_Had she seen him yesterday? He mentally slapped himself, of course she had, the three ninken had been there the entire time, so logically she had been the one to send Minato to him. _

_"__I'm fine. And you?" he questioned politely, hoping that she wouldn't say anything about the day before. Thankfully she seemed to realize that it would make him uncomfortable to talk about and never mentioned it._

_They spoke a bit about Uuhei's training as they waited for the other two to arrive. When Obito had arrived half an hour after Minato he had at first been wary about Kakashi suddenly being nice to Rin it seemed, but after that he must have figured it was all an act or something because he started his insults and attacks just as frequently as usual, even though Kakashi wouldn't fight back. _

_I__n truth Kakashi was more than a little hurt that things were starting off so poorly regarding Obito._

_Unfortunately that seemed to just make Obito angrier, and as they were walking towards the ramen stand for a team lunch, he had made a comment that made all three of them pause. _

_"Obito-kun" Rin gasped, staring at the boy in shock. _

_"What did you just say?" Minato demanded, though Kakashi was sure that he'd heard the Uchiha perfectly. _

_For his part he was too shocked to know what to say, Obito had never been that cruel the first time around. The words seemed to echo in his mind as he stared at the glaring boy._

_Kakashi ignored Rin's worried glances and pushed past Minato, racing towards his home as fast as he could._

"_You're lucky your parents are already dead, otherwise they would probably kill themselves, knowing they had someone like you for a son"_

_End Flashback_

"And I don't think he knew that my dad did kill himself, otherwise he probably wouldn't have said something. He was probably just trying to get a rise out of me since I was ignoring his other attempts to get me angry" Kakashi explained when he'd finished.

He woke up Bull who had started snoring on his lap. The puppy looked up at him and grumbled a bit before falling back asleep.

"And you weren't doing anything at all?" Inoichi questioned.

Kakashi lifted his head to look at the man, "Not that I'm aware of. I could see him doing that if I was mocking him back, but I didn't say anything that he could have taken the wrong way, I don't think" Kakashi responded.

Well, he'd been sort of ignoring the boy, but he figured it was better that than breaking down and getting locked up after he'd apologizing profusely and begged for forgiveness, that Minato wouldn't be able to brush off, after all.

* * *

**Inoichi's POV**

He left shortly after allowing Kakashi to fill the remaining time talking about his ninken, it had been about two hours, for all Kakashi hadn't really wanted to talk to him when everything had first started. He seemed to have a lot to say for someone who kept to himself most of the time.

Inoichi wasn't adverse to listening or talking more, but he did have a shift in the T&I Department that he had to get to. Thankfully they were in a time of peace, or he would be there all the time. He didn't care for Torture and Interrogation though. He knew they were necessary, and that he was scarily good at them, but that didn't mean he liked them.

Okay, so interrogation wasn't bad, but torture disgusted him. He'd gotten over it, but for the first several months he'd worked there he'd ended up throwing up after torturing someone, and sometimes he still did if it was bad enough.

Kakashi had provided him with a lot of information, though he probably hadn't realized it. For one, there were some discrepancies in the way he spoke.

Once or twice he'd used past tense in reference to his teammates, and the way he talked about them made it seem as though he'd known them personally for a lot longer than just the few short months that they had been a team.

He was also pretty cautious about the way he spoke. Inoichi had thought at first he was just nervous, but as he continued to talk it became apparent that he was analyzing everything before he said it, as if it might get him in trouble.

Unlike how Minato had thought initially, from the way he spoke Kakashi actually did like his teammates.

That had been part of the reason that he'd been so upset by Obito's words. Sure he wouldn't have appreciated the reminder had he hated the Uchiha, but he would have brushed it off since the boy's opinion shouldn't have mattered that much.

Also, he wouldn't have defended Obito. He was sort of confused as to why Kakashi tried to act as though he didn't like the Uchiha though.

It wasn't surprising to him how Kakashi could bond so well with his ninken, he saw them as his family.

Inoichi had decided not to bring up Kakashi's nightmare or his father for that visit since the boy was still so tense around him and there was something he wanted to check on.

It would be a bit difficult to figure out because he couldn't give anything away about the details of his visit with Kakashi since they were confidential, but he knew that Shikaku wouldn't press him if he gave him barely any information about something.

As for the eye problem that Minato had noticed, Inoichi had seen it a couple of times when Kakashi had lowered his guard a bit towards the end of the session. That he wasn't sure about and for now he would suggest an eye doctor, but it did seem like it was actually a mental thing rather than physical.

He paused in his walk when he saw a pug making his way towards the Hatake home.

"Um, Pakkun right?" he asked. The pug had been a common sight around Konoha when Kakashi had been on the clan's bad side, always walking alongside his silver-haired partner and sometimes attacking people or dragging Kakashi away from the danger.

Pakkun looked up and his ears flattened against his head a bit. "That's right. And you're a Yamanaka. My pup better still be in one piece" he growled.

Inoichi nodded, "He's fine. I was actually wondering if you'd be willing to answer some questions" he replied.

The pug's eyes narrowed, "If Kakashi won't tell you then I certainly won't" he snapped.

Inoichi nodded, "I'm aware, these aren't really questions that I think Kakashi can answer though. You can refuse if you want" he said. Pakkun nodded, still looking reluctant.

"Alright, the first question. What exactly did Kakashi tell you happened with Inori?" he asked.

Pakkun bared his teeth, "He didn't tell me anything. After you people started attacking him he only talked to me about training. It took until you stopped attacking him once he graduated for him to even think about anything else but getting strong enough to protect himself" he growled.

Inoichi had come to the conclusion that Kakashi had just figured that once he'd become a genin, attacking him would have resulted in fines towards Yamanaka clan, or even imprisonment which was why they stopped. It fit perfectly with how Kakashi seemed to react to the clan, especially if he'd never had anything explained to him about the attacks.

"Hey, finish your questions" Pakkun ordered, drawing him out of his thought.

Inoichi nodded, "Sorry. Let's see, his nightmares. I figure he doesn't always wake up when he has them, so do you wake him up, or let him have them, and how many does he have on average each week?" Inoichi asked.

While he didn't like being ordered around by the pug, he wanted his questions answered and it wasn't like there wasn't a valid reason for Pakkun to dislike him.

Pakkun tilted his head as he thought.

"We don't always wake him up. Usually if one of us lies down with him then he'll calm down. We only wake him up if it seems really bad. Um, it kind of depends on average. He had a couple of years where it was only every couple of months, he's been having them every night for the past week though, and these ones are really bad so we have to wake him up. We haven't been able to for the last two days, since he's got Shiba shut in the room with him. We heard him though" he explained, obviously not seeing anything wrong with the question.

Inoichi nodded, "Well, if you think of anything else that you think might help I'd be interested. Other than that I'll be returning in two days" he said in farewell and left.

* * *

**Obito's POV**

He kicked at the training dummy on his property, breathing harshly as he got more and more angry.

Minato had ordered him home for the next five days, the same amount of time Kakashi was getting off.

He'd been informed that if he didn't apologize to Kakashi then he would be kicked off the team for a longer period of time.

This wasn't his fault, Kakashi always insulted him too, but Obito didn't see him getting kicked off the team. Besides, it wasn't like he expected his insult to actually upset Kakashi, the boy was practically a robot.

In addition, Obito knew that Pakkun was Kakashi's ninken. He'd put two and two together after Minato had said Kakashi wasn't going to be at training so he could work with his new ninken.

While he'd been healed perfectly at the hospital and insisted he'd felt fine, Minato had told him he should take the day off since healing took a lot out of the body and training wasn't recommended right after such a procedure. He'd missed a day of training and doing a mission with Rin.

As far as he was concerned, Minato was babying Kakashi since he liked him better.

He'd known Kakashi for longer and naturally cared more for him than he did for Rin and Obito. Otherwise he should have kicked Kakashi off the team for whenever Kakashi had insulted him since most of his insults ended up upsetting the Uchiha.

He'd known since he'd been placed on the team that Kakashi would always be Minato's favorite though. The man was still refusing to give them a C-rank even though the others that graduated at the same time had already been on multiple C-ranks. His excuse was that they weren't acting like a team, but that was all Kakashi's fault too.

He slowly stopped striking the training dummy and moved over to sit down on the nearby log.

He had a pretty big training ground and yard, even a house to himself. It wasn't really a reward or anything though. The house was pretty much falling down and the yard was overrun with dead plants and trees. This was called the annex which was actually walled off from the rest of the Uchiha Compound and he was the first person to live here in the past twenty years. It was punishment for doing so horribly in upholding the Uchiha name.

"Damn bastard" he muttered about Kakashi. Minato had told him that he needed to talk to Kakashi if he wanted to figure out how exactly he'd upset his Chuunin teammate so right now Obito had nothing to do but train on his own, and think since there was no way he was going to talk to his teammate.

The more thinking he did, the angrier he got.

He'd thought Minato had understood how much he liked Rin so he should have realized that Obito was upset at how that day had been going.

First he arrived to see Rin and Kakashi acting all friendly. Then he'd learned that Rin had been over at his house the day before.

Added to that, Kakashi was ignoring him. Obito had called him a bastard when he'd arrived and Rin had gently reprimanded him, but Kakashi hadn't even given any indication that he'd heard. The rest of the day had been pretty much Kakashi ignoring him, but paying almost too much attention to Rin as they worked.

Finally he'd gotten angry and he may have been a little out of line, but Kakashi already had Rin's affection, had he wanted to, Kakashi could have gotten a date with her, and Obito had been interested in her first.

Not even that, Kakashi had been a complete jerk to her in the past, and Obito had been nothing but nice. Kakashi definitely didn't deserve Rin's affection or attention.

After he'd had time to cool down he'd admitted to himself that he had said what he'd out of jealousy, but that didn't mean that he was any more out of line than Kakashi had ever been and he didn't think it was fair to be forced to apologize to the Hatake.

* * *

**Rin's POV**

Four days had passed since the last mission they'd taken and Kakashi had raced off. Obito had brushed it off as Kakashi just trying to get attention, but Rin had seen how upset the comment had made him.

Unlike Obito, she knew exactly how much a comment like that would have hurt the Chuunin. Sure, it would have hurt less had Kakashi's father not actually killed himself, but it was still highly inappropriate and cruel of the Uchiha regardless of the circumstances.

She was a bit confused as well, not expecting something like that from him since he was usually so sweet to her, and at least always insulting Kakashi in self-defense rather than trying to antagonize him.

Minato had requested that she let Kakashi have time to cool down, but she figured that four days was enough time and really wanted to make sure he was alright.

That was how she found herself tentatively knocking on his door around ten the next morning. It took a little while, but soon he answered. Her eyes immediately widened.

"What happened to your arm?" she cried out.

Kakashi immediately gestured for her to be quieter. "Shhh, it was just my new ninken, he hasn't learned not to bite yet, it's fine" he told her, stepping back to let her in, throwing glances over his shoulder distractedly.

"He's fine pup" Pakkun told him, walking out from the hallway, "Oh, hello Rin" he greeted when he spotted her.

Rin gave him a strained smile back as she stepped inside, "Hello Pakkun" before turning back to Kakashi, "Even if they aren't too bad, have you at least cleaned them? Saliva carries a lot of bacteria and it could get infected" she stressed.

Kakashi nodded, "It's fine, I've cleaned them really well. Now please lower your voice a little, Shiba has sensitive hearing and I just got him calmed down" he requested.

Rin sighed, but nodded in agreement, deciding to change the subject.

"Kakashi-kun, I just wanted to know if you were alright after what Obito said" she told him hesitantly.

Kakashi frowned, moving to pick up the dark brown puppy that had flopped to the ground, having tripped over its huge paws.

"I'm fine. I figured it was retaliation for all the stuff I've said to him in the past" he responded with a shrug.

Her frown deepened, that wasn't right. Kakashi shouldn't be brushing off something like this. Even if she hadn't been able to read his expression very well at the time, he wouldn't have run off like that had he not at least been somewhat affected by Obito's words.

"I know what happened to your father" she said tentatively.

Kakashi just shrugged, "A lot of people know what happened to my father. I'm sure Obito didn't though" he pointed out. Once again Rin was surprised. Kakashi seemed to be defending the Uchiha.

"Now if that's all, I need to take Bull to Inuzuka-san for his check-up" Kakashi told her, lifting up the dog in his arms, which barked happily at her.

She smiled at him. "Don't you have two?" she asked.

Kakashi nodded, "I can't take them at the same time, so him first, Shiba in a few days when he's calmer" he told her.

She nodded, "Well, I'll walk with you and we can talk on the way" she decided. Rin hoped she wasn't being too forceful, but thankfully Kakashi just nodded in agreement.

On the way there they didn't do too much talking about what had happened, much to Rin's disappointment.

Instead, Kakashi had steered the conversation towards how her one-on-one training with their sensei was going. She noticed that he wasn't very comfortable talking about Obito with her though, so she didn't put up too much of a fuss.

"Hey brat, get yourself a girlfriend?" the loud voice of Tsume interrupted them.

Rin blushed heavily at her words and Kakashi rolled his eyes, "This is my teammate Rin" he introduced. "Rin, this is Inuzuka Tsume". It appeared as though they had arrived at their destination.

Rin immediately bowed, she'd heard of Tsume, the woman was next in line for the position of clan head. Usually it would be a male heir in most clans, but in the Inuzuka clan it was the one who was the most skilled, and that was definitely Tsume.

"Very pleased to meet you Inuzuka-san" Rin greeted.

A bark of laughter made her look up, "You're quite the polite one, it's just Tsume kid" she laughed before turning to Kakashi.

"Well, bring Bull inside, I'll give him his check-up" she told him and looked over at Rin.

"You should probably head home. You'll see your boyfriend at training later" she said with a grin. Rin colored once again. She wasn't used to people teasing her like this, and from a clan heir it wasn't really expected.

"I'll see you later Kakashi-kun" she mumbled before racing back in the direction they had come from.

* * *

**Tsume's POV**

She grinned as the girl took off; she had been pretty fun to tease. Turning back, she saw Kakashi looking at her with a slightly annoyed expression and her grin widened, "Well, come on inside brat. We'll get your pup looked at" she told him cheerfully, opening the door and heading inside.

Tsume had always had a soft spot for Kakashi.

She hadn't known Sakumo at all, but like almost everyone, she knew what he had done.

In her opinion, even though it hadn't been popular opinion at the time, he had been completely right to do as he had done on that mission.

While ninja were trained to follow the shinobi code, most of them didn't work with ninken. A ninken wasn't just another weapon, they were a partner, and an extension of a ninja. Had Kuromaru been the one in danger, she would have saved him, consequences be damned, and that was how she felt a team should function.

So when Minato had approached the Inuzuka clan about finding Kakashi a puppy that he might be able to train as a ninken, she had volunteered.

Of course she wasn't able to take a puppy from their kennels since they were specially bred and Kakashi wasn't part of their clan, so she had taken quite a bit of time searching through the kennels for him.

Pakkun had been the best pick from all the litters there. While he was small, she had figured he would be a pretty good companion. She had been right, Pakkun had learned human speech nearly four times faster than any of the Inuzuka ninken had, and most of them actually never learned.

Her choices of Urushi and Uuhei had been excellent as well. Urushi was a bit behind Pakkun in speech, but was better at scenting. Uuhei was pretty hyper, but as far as both sight and scenting were concerned, he was excellent.

The first time she had met Kakashi her first thought had been that the boy was a horrible brat. She had nearly taken the pug back to the shelter because of how he had behaved, but Minato had requested that she leave the dog on a trial basis and he would return the puppy himself if Kakashi was unable to care for it.

That had definitely been the right decision because soon Kakashi was visiting her house every couple of days for advice on how to better care for and train Pakkun. The initial impression had most likely been from the pain of losing his father.

On Kakashi's birthday she had closed down the store to help him pick out the two new additions to his family, and actually found herself wondering why she'd needed to be there at all.

Kakashi seemed to know exactly what to look for and made his choices easily. While Shiba was a mutt with no papers, he was healthy and once he calmed down he would aid the team by detecting sounds.

She'd been surprised that Kakashi had picked up on something like that, but he'd immediately picked up the dog and carried it out, telling her that the puppy would be alright once they were away from the noise since he shouldn't have been able to make such an observation with his limited interactions with dogs outside of his three.

With Bull, he had been the only one of his litter that had been taken to the shelter, and the papers showed him to be a slight mix, but predominantly Irish mastiff. He was a very good choice for Kakashi's team, and would start showing that once he was able to walk without tripping over his own paws every few steps.

Kakashi's other ninken were smaller and better suited for tracking, but Bull would be a good enforcer since he would grow so big.

Judging from his paw size, he would soon be bigger than Kakashi. Kakashi would have to do a lot of growing to catch up.

His temperament wasn't completely desirable, how friendly he was with everyone, but he would grow out of that as his training progressed because otherwise it would be dangerous on missions, if he suddenly tried to befriend an enemy ninja.

"So, take him out and we'll get him looked at" she told Kakashi, getting started.

* * *

Thank you all for the reviews. I'm hoping to get to a time skip soon, but it won't be for a couple of chapters.

So as always, please review.


	6. Truth and Discovery

Disclaimer: Naruto isn't mine. If it was, then Naruto would have been put on a team with Shikamaru and maybe Hinata.

Thanks to everyone who's been reading this and reviewing. Special thanks to Lucillia for pointing out that the character tag for Obito had been changed, to KiyumiArashi for pointing out a typo, and to Rika24 because I learned the word Jossed.

I'm really sorry that it's taken me so long to update. I was planning on last week, but this chapter was kind of difficult to write and I'm still not sure it's all that great. I figured I'd post it and see what other people think.

Betaed by ECDL

* * *

**Minato's POV**

He exchanged worried glances with Rin as the three sat at the training grounds, all of them attempting to ignore the tense atmosphere. Kakashi's last day of leave had ended, and he had returned for training that day.

The question that they all had on their minds was whether or not Obito would show up as well.

Minato had met with the Uchiha the day before and told him not to bother to return to training if he wasn't planning on apologizing to Kakashi, and Obito had still maintained that he hadn't done anything wrong, that it was Kakashi's fault and he didn't see why he had to apologize.

The three had already waited longer than the normal amount of time they usually had to for the Uchiha to arrive, and it seemed he had made his decision.

Minato finally sighed in resignation and rose to his feet, "Rin, Kakashi, I got you some more missions weeding more gardens, so we should head over to the first one" he told them.

Rin hesitated, but finally nodded. He could tell from her expression how much this was upsetting her.

Even though she sided with Kakashi most of the time, she liked Obito as well, and just wanted the two to put aside their differences and become friends, or at the very least not hate each other.

Kakashi just nodded at Minato and stood up as well.

The Hatake hadn't spoken much except to exchange greetings with them, and Minato was half suspecting that Kakashi was as anxious about what Obito would decide to do as they were.

While a couple weeks before he would have said that Kakashi didn't care, he noticed how Kakashi would glance in the direction that Obito usually came from, probably when he figured nobody was looking at him.

He had been surprised when he'd stopped by to visit the Hatake and the boy had requested that Minato allow Obito back on the team without an apology, but he couldn't really do that. Even if Kakashi wasn't upset with him, he had definitely gone too far with his words and needed to realize that what he said was not okay and wouldn't be tolerated.

So unlike the last time they'd had this type of mission, Kakashi ignored Rin's attempts at conversation.

At first Minato had been worried that Kakashi was starting to pull away from his teammate again, but judging by his expression as he worked, he was thinking pretty hard about something and wasn't purposefully being rude to her.

Rin understood, of course she did, she was very good at reading her masked teammate, and didn't become upset when he brushed her off.

* * *

**Kakashi's POV**

He had hoped that Obito might show up to training.

It wasn't for an apology, at least, not the apology Rin and Minato were expecting. Kakashi wanted to apologize to him.

True, he wasn't exactly sure what he'd done to piss off Obito at their last meeting, but hoped that apologizing for that, and then working his way back to the things he'd done in the past might help clear things up enough between them that Obito didn't completely hate him.

Unfortunately that wasn't going to be happening for a little while it seemed. He'd attempted to talk to Obito the day before, making his way over to the Uchiha Compound. The people at the entrance hadn't even listened to his reasons after he'd asked for Obito before turning him away, and had refused to deliver a message of any kind.

He'd thought about asking Minato for help in contacting him, but the blonde hadn't listened when Kakashi had said he didn't want an apology, and Kakashi wasn't sure he would help.

Thinking back, he may have screwed things up even more.

The first time around he had been kicked off the team, which had been the first point in time when Minato had taken Obito's side instead of Kakashi's. Because he'd changed things, even the smallest bit, now Minato was once again siding against Obito.

When he'd been a kid he'd thought that insulting his teammate was perfectly acceptable, considering his opinion of the Uchiha back then. That was why he'd never actually apologized for what he'd said to Obito in the instance when he'd been removed from the team.

He hadn't thought he'd been wrong to say what he had said, much like Obito now. The major difference though, was that Minato was once again ignoring every time he'd made Obito cry, in favor of punishing Obito for the one time he'd upset Kakashi.

The last time around Minato hadn't really known how to deal with the group of three.

Sure he knew how to handle Kakashi to an extent since he had looked after him for so long, but Kakashi hadn't been a normal kid by any stretch of the imagination.

While teamwork was something that Minato thought was important, he also was a lot closer to Kakashi than the other two, and was prone to letting things he did slide.

This had some negative effects.

A major one being that Obito had started to resent both Kakashi and Minato. While Kakashi didn't remember seeing any signs that Obito felt this way, he had been pretty dismissive of the Uchiha. The last time they'd all been together though, he'd seen how Obito had acted around their sensei, and could tell that he was pretty much resigned to being considered second best, and most likely more so now that Minato had stepped in to defend Kakashi.

This time he hoped to push Minato to look at them more equally rather than looking after Kakashi specifically since he'd taken care of him and known him for so long.

True, Minato had eventually figured things out from what Kakashi could tell, reprimanding both of them for their insults and arguments, but it had taken him so long that the rift between Kakashi and Obito had become extremely strained.

Kakashi was pretty sure that at the time it would have been impossible to repair. Of course, when Kakashi had disregarded the mission orders so that he could help out Obito and Rin, there was a chance that Obito would have forgiven him had they not been separated directly after.

For all of the things Kakashi could see wrong with how Minato approached the situation though, he definitely didn't blame the man for anything.

He was trying his best, especially since he'd taken in Kakashi when he'd only been in his mid-teens, and was still pretty much a teenager at this time. No, none of this would have been happening now, or would have happened in the future, had he not rejected his teammates as soon as he'd met them, and continued to dismiss them all the way up until just before Obito's supposed death.

He was sorry about ignoring Rin as they worked on their missions that day, but he had a lot of thinking to do and hoped that he would be able to run into Obito soon to talk with him, as well as discuss things with Minato.

When Minato had told them that it was time for their missions, Kakashi had wanted to request that they wait for a little while longer, but he knew that there was no way Obito would be showing up now. He had never been more than just over an hour late.

It seemed that Rin and Minato were just as hopeful as Kakashi was though, there seemed to have been an unspoken agreement after the first hour had passed, that they would wait one more.

That day they had received two missions, and that was a rare number for just two genin to take even in a week since paying for a D-rank mission cost the same amount no matter how many genin worked on it, so people would request full teams to get their money's worth.

Although, the type of work that they were doing now did show that Minato hadn't expected Obito to show up since he'd chosen missions that could be taken by just the two before he'd even met them at the training grounds. They finished up the second one around noon.

"How about we go out for barbeque" Minato suggested as they left the Hokage Tower after collecting their pay,

Kakashi could tell he was looking to cheer him up, and would have felt more grateful had he felt that he actually deserved to be cheered up.

"Okay" Rin readily agreed.

Kakashi hesitated before shaking his head, "Sorry sensei. Maybe some other time" he told him reluctantly.

Minato just gave him a small smile and ruffled his hair, "It's fine Kakashi, go home and check on your ninken" he said. That wasn't the reason that Kakashi wanted to leave, but took the excuse and nodded.

While he would have liked to talk with Minato right then about everything, he didn't want Rin to get involved. He figured it might embarrass the man since he was supposed to be the responsible adult, so he figured that they should discuss things in private.

As soon as Rin and Minato had entered the establishment he headed towards his house, first he figured he would check on his ninken since he would have to soon anyway, but then he wanted to try and find Obito again.

It wasn't like Obito would hole himself up in the Uchiha Compound all day after all.

He had just finished playing with Shiba and closed him into the room again, when he heard knocking at his front door.

He winced as he realized that he had agreed to meet with the Yamanaka today around one. With all the tension surrounding the wait for Obito, it had slipped his mind.

Thankfully the missions had been short and he'd been released early, otherwise he would have completely skipped the session.

Kakashi answered the door quickly. "Yamanaka-san," he greeted as he had done the previous time.

"I already told you, Inoichi is fine. And I figured that we could talk outside this time if you were alright with that" the blonde suggested.

Kakashi frowned, he wanted to go talk to Obito as soon as he could to smooth things over.

It wouldn't be a good idea to cancel this session with Inoichi though. Even if Inoichi said that he was alright with him, cancelling on a clan heir was really bad form.

And he supposed that meeting with Obito could wait a little, he wasn't even sure if he could find him after all.

"Where?" he finally asked. Inoichi shrugged, "I'm leaving that up to you" he replied.

* * *

**Inoichi's POV**

He could tell that Kakashi was debating with himself about the session and he wondered if Kakashi had talked himself out of continuing counseling. That would be bad, especially with what he'd found out from his father and Shikaku since he'd last spoken with the two. Had Kakashi canceled then Inoichi would have insisted that Minato force the boy to speak with him, or at least someone else if he was uncomfortable for any reason.

Thankfully Kakashi seemed to have talked himself into speaking with Inoichi and when he was given the option of deciding where to go he chose the Hokage Monument.

After saying goodbye to his ninken, Kakashi locked the door and they started on their way.

As they walked Inoichi thought.

The things he had learned since they had last met would have to wait until after this session, at least. He needed to get a better read on Kakashi's mental state first and more proof, because otherwise he doubted Kakashi would be able to handle this revelation on top of everything else that he was dealing with, and probably would deny everything that he was told.

While what Inoichi had found had the potential to be very dangerous if it was left unchecked, bringing it up now could cause more damage.

_Flashback Inoichi's POV_

"_Inoichi, I've spoken with Teru-san, and he's stated that you're advancing through the ranks quickly" his father stated when he entered the house instead of a normal greeting. _

_That was probably as close to praise as Inoichi was going to get from the man. _

_Yamanaka Inohiko was the current clan head and former head of the Torture and Interrogation Department. He would have gladly remained there, but his methods were considered too brutal and he'd ended up breaking the minds of, or killing, several of the prisoners that they'd needed to extract information from. _

_He was basically the exact opposite of Inoichi in this respect. Interrogation definitely wasn't his strong point, he lacked the patience to interrogate someone and generally ended up moving on to torture immediately if he couldn't get the information he wanted right away. _

_The Hokage had ordered him removed from the position and while he was still a Konoha jounin, he wasn't generally on active duty and remained home most of the time. _

_Of course, if the village was in danger, or a war started, Inoichi's father would be reinstated because they would need all the help they could get._

"_Yes, that's correct. I had a question for you about the Memory Manipulation Technique" he stated bluntly. Had he beat around the bush, his father would have gotten irritated with him. _

_Inohiko raised an eyebrow, "And?" he prompted impatiently when Inoichi didn't continue. _

_"If you don't have a specific memory in mind and are intending to change that memory then what exactly would the effects be?" he questioned. _

_Inohiko frowned, "You haven't done anything stupid have you boy?" he demanded. _

_Inoichi shook his head quickly, "I was just curious" he replied hurriedly. While it was a technique in his family arsenal, it hadn't been one that he had focused on when he'd been in the field because it took a great deal of time and chakra to succeed with, and just wasn't as necessary as most of the others he'd learned. _

_While he had looked through the scroll, the answers to any of the questions he had were either vague, or required experience with the technique to be answered. Otherwise he wouldn't bring this up to his father, the fewer people involved in this the better, at least that's how Kakashi would see it anyway._

_Inohiko sank back into his seat, although from his expression he was less than satisfied with Inoichi's answer, it seemed that he would let it slide for now. _

_"Well, provided you have the skills not to shatter that person's mind, you might be able to look through their memories a bit, or you'll end up moving memories around, erasing some, pulling some to the front of the mind so that it's something that the victim will be thinking about. Why?" he questioned. Maybe he wouldn't let this go fully._

_Inoichi could see that the man was trying to read him. While reading expressions was more useful in interrogations and Inohiko found it to be more of an annoyance to try, he would use it when he had to, especially since he actually cared for his son enough not to employ harsher methods in order to learn things from him._

_Inoichi shook his head again, "No reason. I just saw Hatake Kakashi earlier today and was thinking about what Inori tried to do. And then I was wondering about the false memories that you could theoretically create if you were able to successfully use the technique" he stated. _

_Inohiko cursed under his breath. While Inoichi didn't like how much his father enjoyed torture, he admired how loyal he was to the village. The mention of Inoichi's cousin was generally a pretty easy way to piss him off considering the fact that Kakashi was an ally. _

_The main thing that upset the man was that Inori was still a ninja. _

_Inohiko's sister had argued fiercely when Inohiko had wanted her to be removed from the program and become a civilian. Inoichi had been in agreement with his aunt that he was being overly harsh with that punishment since she was just a six-year-old kid that didn't know any better. _

_His father had finally relented when his sister suggested an alternative punishment for the girl that he liked. Besides, it had partially been his fault, which he grudgingly admitted. Inori had somehow gotten a hold of the technique scroll to learn it, and the scrolls were watched over by Inohiko._

_Inohiko was eying him suspiciously again, "You could either put in a memory of your design, but you'd have to throw in details to make the victim believe that they were true memories. Or you could shift an existing memory to make the victim believe the events were slightly different. That method is easier since you don't have to use as much chakra or put as much planning into it" he explained and Inoichi was sure that he was trying to determine whether or not Inoichi was considering using these on someone. _

_While it was alright with him if his son used such a technique on an enemy nin, he was probably suspicious about whether or not that was the reason he was asking questions since Inoichi wasn't outright telling him his intentions. Once again Inoichi couldn't say anything since he didn't want anything pointing to Kakashi._

_Thankfully he only had one more question, "How can you detect or remove one of these false memories?" he wondered. _

_Even though Inoichi could see that his father now knew exactly what he was getting at, the man didn't comment, thankfully. It seemed like he'd caught his father in one of his rare good moods._

_"The same way you change them. Start the technique like you're meaning to change the memory. If it's false then you'll be able to influence it without chakra, like you're in someone's dream and can see things outside of first-person. If it's real then it won't move. Removing it's just takes a push with your chakra" he responded._

_Inoichi nodded in understanding, "Thanks" he said and left the room, ignoring his father's orders to tell him why he was asking all of those questions as his patience finally ran out. _

_Inoichi shook his head in exasperation as he walked away, knowing that even if he said that he was protecting a client's privacy, his father would want to know anyway._

_This had supported his suspicions from earlier though, coupled with what Minato had told him about Kakashi's nightmare, and the meager amount of information surrounding Sakumo's death, Inoichi was starting to think he was right._

_End flashback_

Kakashi's nightmares, coupled with the emotional outbursts were what had made him start to draw the conclusion.

Inori had said that she wasn't able to finish her technique, and the fact that Kakashi could still function had led them to conclude that she was telling the truth and had failed. However, Kakashi couldn't fully remember what had happened at the time, why he had ended up attacking Inori.

That had started him thinking that maybe Inori's technique had succeeded partially, and by some miracle she hadn't done much damage before Kakashi had been able to stop her. After he'd spoken with his teammate Shikaku, he suspected that Inori had inadvertently uncovered previous memory tampering that nobody had ever even considered because it was so unlikely.

Using any sort of memory altering technique on anyone under about the age of ten was dangerous, and at five or even younger it was unheard of because of the ramifications as the child developed.

The walk wasn't too long, and Kakashi kept either just a little behind him, or right at his side, obviously to keep the blonde in his sights.

While Inoichi didn't like the situation, having also been trained to expect an attack if you weren't able to fully see people that were close by, he allowed it for now since he doubted the Hatake would attack him.

Kakashi's situation was strange, Inoichi's volunteer jobs were taken because someone specifically wanted to talk to him. This was the only case that his client had been rather reluctant to hold a conversation.

It was different because usually his patients talked a great deal since they'd actively sought him out rather than being referred by someone. Kakashi only spoke when prompted, and wasn't as forthcoming about why exactly he was talking to Inoichi in the first place.

When they reached the top of the monument Kakashi sat down on the base of the cliff just above the faces. Inoichi sat down nearby.

This conversation went about the same as the last one, most likely because even though Kakashi seemed to trust him a bit more, he didn't have his ninken with him for moral support this time.

Getting him to talk about his nightmare had taken a little while, but finally Kakashi reluctantly explained what had happened. It had been a bit more detailed than what Minato had told him, most likely because Minato hadn't wanted to lose Kakashi's trust if he told too much.

He brought up Kakashi's eye this time as well, if only because even though it still didn't look like it hurt him, he was closing it just as frequently as he had before.

Kakashi had assured him that he was fine, and had made an effort to keep it open as much as his other eye, even though he failed.

Since he wasn't listening to Inoichi's advice though, he would have to talk to Minato about taking him to a doctor to get it checked out.

This time Inoichi didn't get to talk to him more than half-an-hour before a hawk had descended landing in front of him and holding out its leg with a letter attached.

"Sorry Kakashi, it looks like we're cutting things short" he apologized after he'd removed the letter and had quickly glanced over it. It was insisting that he head to the Hokage Tower immediately.

Kakashi frowned in response but shrugged, "That's alright. I should probably start looking for Obito" he responded, earning a raised brow in response.

He shrugged again, "He skipped training so we couldn't talk about what happened, so I figured I'd track him down" he explained. Inoichi just nodded in response, having expected that sort of thing.

After bidding the Hatake farewell he swiftly left to reach the tower, entering the Hokage's office after the secretary had admitted him. He frowned, inside stood Shikaku leaning up against the wall.

"Good, you made it" the Third said before offering the seat in front of his desk.

"May I ask what this is about Hokage-sama?" he questioned as he sat down.

His missions all took place inside the village now, as of last year, and Shikaku was currently looking over village security measures so he was pretty much off active duty at this time. The Third responded by placing a file in front of him, one that Inoichi had seen just a couple of days before.

"Is there a problem Hokage-sama?" he asked.

The Third chewed on his pipe for a moment before answering, "Not really, I just had some questions about why two of my top jounin were looking into an almost six year old closed case when they should be much too busy to have that sort of free time" he responded.

He wasn't reprimanding them for not doing their work though, he seemed genuinely curious about what the two had found that they deemed so important that they would sacrifice some of their already limited free time.

"Because we think the investigators were biased idiots who didn't do their work correctly" Shikaku replied lazily.

Inoichi winced, Shikaku was too blunt sometimes.

"Be careful what you say Shikaku" as Inoichi suspected, the Hokage didn't let him get away with blaming his comrades of anything.

Shikaku shrugged, "Sorry Hokage-sama. If you wish I can call them incompetent so it doesn't look like I'm accusing them of something" he offered.

Inoichi wanted to bang his head against the desk at that, but he was sure the Hokage wouldn't want his paperwork disturbed. Of course, Shikaku knew he could get away with saying these things in the man's presence, receiving nothing more than a slight reprimand, or he wouldn't have even considered it.

Thankfully the Hokage didn't enable him more and just rolled his eyes, "And what makes you think their conclusion is wrong?" he asked instead of scolding the man again, probably trying to get back to the matter at hand before Shikaku ended up making him look like an idiot.

His friend didn't mean to do so, but it seemed that that was the inevitable if someone entered a conversation with him about anything but the weather, and even then there was no guarantee.

Shikaku sighed, "It's all there in the report" he stated lazily, before elaborating.

_Flashback Inoichi's POV_

_After getting a copy of the thin report from the investigation of Sakumo's death he made his way over to the Nara property. _

_Thankfully the deer were alright with him since Shikaku had introduced him as a friend, so he was able to reach his teammate's home unhindered, though he was escorted there since he wasn't fully trusted. _

_Currently Shikaku lived in an apartment near the main house. _

_His mother was the current clan head and lived in the main house with his father and sister. He'd moved out as soon as he could, something about having an overbearing mother. As the heir it would soon be his home in the future, though not until after his mother either passed the position on to him willingly, or was killed. Inoichi doubted Nara Shikata, Shikaku's mother, would allow Shikaku to take over as long as she was alive though, in her opinion he was too lazy, and though he'd never said it aloud, Inoichi agreed with her completely._

_Inoichi didn't particularly like asking Shikaku for help because he usually always made Inoichi feel like an idiot with the way he made it seem as though everything he explained was common sense. He was quickly admitted into the house after knocking and soon was sitting on the couch nearby Shikaku, who was slouching as he leaned against the wall. _

_Even though he prided himself on being able to understand human behavior, Inoichi doubted he would ever get why his friend preferred to stand rather than sit in the company of others, especially since he was so laid back._

"_So?" Shikaku asked after looking over the file lazily, tossing it onto the coffee table in front of Inoichi. _

_"So I was wondering what you thought about it. It was pretty small compared to the other files and seemed sort of disorganized and sloppy" he explained. _

_Shikaku rolled his eyes, "Of course it's small and sloppy, they didn't do half the investigation work they needed to and came up with the wrong conclusion" he sighed and shook his head in slight exasperation. _

_"Wrong conclusion?" Inoichi asked in confusion, "It wasn't a suicide then?". _

_Shikaku snorted, "Open to the first page, it states that the door to the office was closed when the kid's babysitter got there. For one, why would the kid close the door after finding his father's body? For another, that door should have been impossible for her to get through since it was enforced from the outside by seals created by Jiraiya, and it took a while for Minato to deactivate it hours later since they wanted to close the door and not get locked out. The brat's babysitter was just a chuunin at the time, and her focus was on taijutsu, she didn't have any skills related to seals" he explained._

_Inoichi nodded in understanding, "Then why didn't the people making the report catch this?" he asked. _

_Shikaku raised an eyebrow and Inoichi immediately felt really stupid. _

_"Hatake Sakumo was hated by most of Konoha, and judging by this report, the people investigating disliked him. They didn't think solving this was important so they just threw something together after collecting the minimum amount of information that they could, and then presented it as fact. So you can tell that to the kid" he said. _

_Inoichi winced when his teammate revealed that he knew Inoichi's intentions. Shikaku waved it off, "Don't worry about it. I won't say anything. Just, if you do get the case reopened then I'll be interested in knowing what exactly you find out, since both the babysitter and the brat didn't contest the results" he requested lazily._

_End Flashback_

The Third frowned, looking over the information that Shikaku was pointing out.

Inoichi could see that he was pretty much convinced at this point. The Third trusted Shikaku's judgment in pretty much all situations, and this time was no different even if Shikaku was pretty condescending about it.

The Hokage had been busy at the time of Sakumo's death and had just accepted the investigator's final decision without looking through their work, but now he definitely could see that something was off.

"Does Kakashi-kun know?" he finally asked.

"Not yet and it would be best not to tell him until we get more information, if we can continue the investigation that is. I figured I would bring Minato in soon though" Inoichi replied.

The old man nodded, "That's fine, and I'm curious as well. I'll speak with my ANBU that looked into this myself" he offered with a slightly angry tone, making Inoichi glad that he wasn't the one that the Third was mad at. Despite his age, this man was one of the strongest ninja in the village if not the strongest, and if someone was on his bad side it would not end well for them.

* * *

**Kakashi's POV**

As soon as Inoichi had left Kakashi summoned Pakkun. While he didn't really want to expose Obito to the pug again, he was the only one of the ninken that currently knew Obito's scent and would have to do.

"Hey pup. That was quick" Pakkun said with a frown when he appeared, immediately looking around for the blonde that Kakashi was supposed to have been with.

"He got a message from the Hokage so he had to leave. I was wondering if you'd be willing to find Obito for me" he informed the dog.

Pakkun huffed in annoyance at the task he'd been set, "I can if you want me to" he grudgingly responded.

Kakashi hoped he'd get over his dislike for the Uchiha soon. A moment later Pakkun was heading for the stairs.

"This way" he said, turning back when Kakashi didn't immediately follow. Kakashi quickly caught up with him and soon they were on their way through the village.

It seemed Obito had spent a lot of time in the marketplace today because Pakkun tracked his scent through several places before moving on to the training grounds. Surprisingly, Obito was sitting on the bridge next to their training grounds, swinging his legs and staring down into the water.

He looked up as soon as he sensed Kakashi along with Pakkun, his expression hardened as he rose to his feet.

"Hey bastard" Obito shouted, moving towards him. He stopped right in front of him, glaring.

"This is all your fault you know" he continued before Kakashi could say anything. "Why does sensei always side with you? You aren't even that great. All you do is show off and insult us" Obito continued to rant for the next several minutes and Kakashi just stood there silently, listening to all of the problems the Uchiha had with him, and it seemed like there were a fair few.

A couple of them Kakashi could see were just silly though, like that he had gravity defying hair and that it was gray (it's silver!).

* * *

**Obito's POV**

He finally stopped to catch his breath as Kakashi and Pakkun stared at him. Thankfully he had been able to get out everything that he wanted to say without any interruptions from his teammate.

He'd been about to start yelling again in case his teammate had missed something, when Kakashi spoke, making him pause in surprise.

"W-What?" he stuttered out. He hadn't been expecting something like that.

"I'm sorry" Kakashi repeated simply. Well, there went the rest of his rant.

"You're sorry?" Obito asked incredulously.

Kakashi nodded, "That's what I said. I haven't been fair to you or Rin since you've joined the team, and for that I'm sorry" he clarified.

Obito's surprise turned to suspicion. "Wait, you aren't just saying that right?" he asked.

"Actually considering he just said it-" Pakkun was cut off by a warning look from Kakashi. "Be nice, and no, I mean it. Really. And you don't have to apologize to me for anything, I've said some pretty nasty things to you in the past too, and a lot more than just once" he offered.

Obito continued to stare at him for a while, trying to gauge if he was being sincere or not.

It would have been a lot easier had he not been wearing the mask (that had been one of his complaints as well), but finally he decided to give Kakashi the benefit of the doubt, at least this once.

That didn't mean that they would suddenly be best friends though.

There was just one more thing he had to clarify.

"So, are you interested in Rin?" he asked suspiciously.

Kakashi frowned in response, "Of course not. I thought you were?" he replied.

Obito's eyes widened, even Kakashi was able to tell? Sure, he was sort of obvious, and Rin should have realized that too, but for Kakashi of all people to notice something that he'd never outright stated, at least in regard to feelings, was a huge surprise.

"What?" he yelped.

"Don't worry, I won't tell her, she'll realize it eventually. I guess some people can just be dense about other people's feelings towards them" Kakashi assured him wisely, apparently misinterpreting Obito's confusion.

On the one hand, Obito wanted to yell at Kakashi for calling Rin dense, on the other… "I don't want to hear something like that from you of all people" he cried.

Kakashi stared at him in confusion at the outburst.

"What?" he asked.

Obito sighed, "Never mind" he told him before turning his attention to the pug.

"What about telling that thing to attack me?" he demanded anger flaring up once again.

"Who are you calling a thing?" Pakkun demanded as he tried to climb higher onto Kakashi's shoulder.

"This is Pakkun, and I didn't tell him to do anything" Kakashi introduced as the two glared daggers at each other.

Obito continued to glare at the pug until Kakashi gave the dog a little nudge.

It looked over at the silver haired boy and frowned,

"Why pup? I don't want to" he argued against Kakashi's unspoken command.

"Pakkun" he said warningly.

"You can't make me" he growled.

"I won't buy Floral Green shampoo anymore" Kakashi threatened.

The pug's eyes widened, "You fiend, my coat won't be as lustrous if you don't" he said in horror.

Had Obito not been really confused he might have started laughing at the conversation his teammate and the dog were having.

The ninken glowered at his partner for almost another full minute before he reluctantly turned to Obito,

"I'm sorry for being so rough on you at training" Pakkun grudgingly apologized.

Though Obito severely doubted the validity of the apology, he figured it was as good as he was going to get, but that didn't mean he accepted it.

Apparently Kakashi agreed that that was as much as the pug was going to cooperate because he maneuvered until he was able to set the dog on the ground.

"How about you head home and I'll see you later" Kakashi suggested to him.

Pakkun looked at him sternly, "Be careful pup" he ordered, throwing another glare at Obito before taking off.

The two watched him leave before he heard Kakashi sigh and turned back to his teammate.

"I figured you should at least know why sensei reacted the way he did to what you said" he moved over to the tree and sat down at the base, usually Rin's spot. Obito frowned, but followed and sat down on the grass a short ways away. He was a bit curious as to why Minato had reacted so badly to his insult.

Kakashi shifted uncomfortably and stared at his hands as he started out.

"You're right, I am an orphan. My mom died when I was really little, I probably only remember what she looks like because of pictures. My dad though, he raised me after my mom died. Even though he had a lot of missions at the time, he did the best he could. Sometimes Minato-sensei would babysit me since my dad was a friend of his" he was cut off by Obito, "Wait, so he got mad because I said something bad about his friend?" he asked.

Kakashi frowned, "I don't think so, but that may have been a small part of it. Please wait until I finish though" he requested and started speaking again.

"Then one night, really late, an ANBU came by and delivered a message to my father, telling him that he had a mission that he had to attend to, an S-ranked" Obito frowned, Kakashi's father had been killed on an S-ranked mission? As requested though, Obito didn't interrupt, despite really wanting to.

"The mission went south pretty quickly, and my father was left with two options, finish the mission and abandon his comrades, or save his comrades and fail the mission. He chose the second one and when he returned to the village everyone started to shun him, even the ones he'd saved on the mission. It was very important to Konoha you see. Anyway, my father eventually locked us up in our house. His ninja skills started to deteriorate rapidly, he refused to train or answer summons from the Hokage. At the time the council had started to put together a case to try my father for crimes against Konoha. The night that they were going to take him into custody though, I returned home to find that he had acted before they could arrest him" Kakashi looked up and Obito could see the unshed tears in his eyes.

And even though Kakashi would have mocked him for such a thing, Obito couldn't bring himself to make fun of his teammate for being upset by this.

"He'd killed himself. That's why sensei got so angry with you" he said. Obito could tell that there was more that he wanted to say, but it was cut off as Kakashi flinched back, putting his hand up to his temple with a hiss of pain.

* * *

**Kakashi's POV**

He had wanted to reiterate that he didn't blame Obito for what he'd said, when his head began to throb painfully.

_"This blade has a long history Kakashi, it belonged to your great grandparents, and has been passed down, along with our traditions of upholding Konoha's Will of Fire" _the voice of his father sounded in his mind.

He opened his mouth to speak again and bit back a scream as the pain intensified.

_"Kakashi, come with me, there's something important that I must tell you, before I run out of time". _

What the hell was going on? He felt a hand pull his away from his face and was surprised to see concern in his teammate's features as Obito looked down at him.

"He-help, p-please" he bit out through clenched teeth.

He felt the hand pull away and he sunk back against the tree, panting harshly as more pain crashed down on him.

_"Don't interrupt me Kakashi" _he felt the ghost of a strike on his left cheek.

He hoped Obito was quick to find someone, provided he was actually looking for help rather than just leaving him there.

After what felt like hours, he was lifted from the ground. He fought weakly in protest, "I've got you Kakashi" even though he had difficulty, he could make out his sensei's voice and refocused his attention back on the pain and flashes of his dream.

Thankfully, even though he could hear his sensei's alarmed voice telling him to stay awake, he felt the darkness beckoning and welcomed the relief from pain as he lost consciousness.

* * *

Okay, so there's chapter 6. Once again, I'm not sure it's very good, but please review and tell me what you think.

As for Minato's age, I'm not really sure, I figured he was around the age of the Ino-Shika-Cho team and since they're in their forties after the timeskip, that means that when Kakashi's ten, Minato should be nineteen or twenty, so I'm going with nineteen.


	7. Past Explanations

Disclaimer: Naruto isn't mine, if it was, then the first generation Ino-Shika-Cho would be present a lot more.

Thank you to everyone who reviewed. I'm sorry it took so long to come up with another chapter, but I was engaged in an epic battle against the evil known as mid-terms.

The next chapter might take a little while, I have a rough outline for it and I've gotten started, but I have finals, presentations and papers coming up.

Beta-ed by ECDL

* * *

**Inoichi's POV**

He had been hoping that the technique would have been able to hold out a little longer, at least until their investigation was further along, but it seemed like today had been the day the true memory had started to break through.

It hadn't been a huge surprise though, the nightmares should have been a clue that something big was about to happen. That still didn't make it any easier.

Inoichi had been informed about what had occurred nearly two hours after Kakashi had passed out, and immediately figured that the inevitable had happened. At the hospital, he'd been given permission to try something once Kakashi's test results had put everyone at a loss.

Now he was sitting next to the heavily panting boy, trying to get himself as calm as he could for the technique he was about to perform.

While it wasn't something necessary, from the studying he'd done regarding it, as well as his own experience with other techniques of a similar nature, being calmer definitely made things easier, for both parties.

Even though he would have preferred having his father be the one to do this since he had actual experience with the technique, Kakashi didn't know the man and his mind would fight against an unknown intruder even more so than it would Inoichi. At this point, while entering Kakashi's mind and taking care of the problem was necessary, it needed to be done as delicately as possible, trying to reduce the amount that Kakashi's mind fought against the technique.

It was true that Kakashi probably couldn't tell that it was Inoichi since he was unconscious, but he'd at least been around Inoichi's chakra enough that subconsciously his mind should allow the intrusion as long as Inoichi was right and Kakashi somewhat trusted him.

As soon as Inoichi was ready he pushed aside the silver hairs that clung to Kakashi's forehead, and placed his hand on it, activating the technique.

The memory he'd focused on had been one centered around Sakumo, he figured that one would get him to the memory he was looking for the quickest if by some chance it wasn't already the primary memory at the front of the boy's mind.

He didn't like the thought of invading Kakashi's mind to begin with, let alone seeing all of his memories.

Inoichi had to remind himself to stay focused several times though, when different memories began to appear that confused him.

First was a campfire where Sakumo was talking with Kakashi, apologizing for dying. He tried to move past it, only to realize with a start, that this was a memory and not a dream.

The realization startled him so much that he lost his focus slightly. _"Sensei, you're gonna teach me a cool technique right?"_ a whiskered blonde boy with bright blue eyes tugged on Kakashi's arm excitedly.

The scene changed to what Inoichi noted was right by the memorial stone, _"It's time to stop living in the past Kakashi" _a dark haired man stated, looking at him with concern. Those were memories as well and Inoichi forcibly pushed himself back onto the right track.

He would have to think about that later, even though he was curious he couldn't linger on such things unless he wanted to cause some damage.

_Sakumo entered the room where Kakashi was reading a book. "Kakashi, come with me, there's something important I must tell you before I run out of time". _

This had to be the memory that Inori had affected, or at least close to it judging by Sakumo's unkempt appearance. Inoichi stopped the chakra that he was using to move through Kakashi's memories and concentrated on staying inside of this one.

While he hadn't used this technique before since it took more training than most techniques and had never been something he thought he would need to know, he had walked through people's memories before and really didn't care for it at all, mainly because he saw everything from the point of view of the victim. He didn't particularly mind the seeing of a person's memories much, but he definitely minded being unable to move how he wished, and especially how the victim's emotions were forced onto him.

_Kakashi closed the book quickly, climbed off of his bed, and followed behind his father towards the man's study. _Inoichi used a small amount of chakra to test the scene. This was definitely a memory, and not a dream, he'd tried to influence it already without chakra, and could do nothing but look where Kakashi looked, and feel what Kakashi felt.

There was a small flicker as he reached one part of the memory and he felt something shift. It seemed like Kakashi's mind was already removing the changes slowly, but it would take much longer than if Inoichi helped him out.

He felt a bit of annoyance coming from Kakashi, his thought at the time would have amused Inoichi had he not dreaded what he was about to witness, _"'I hope he's not going to start hugging me again. He's getting way too clingy'"_ the little Hatake was thinking.

_Once inside the office, Sakumo moved to stand at his desk. "Close the door Kakashi" he ordered. _

Inoichi could sense Kakashi's confusion, the boy was wondering why Sakumo was ordering him around. Apparently Sakumo was never this forceful.

_"Now stand right there" Sakumo demanded._

Kakashi flinched at the tone as he complied and Inoichi felt slight bit of fear coming from him. He guessed that this side of Sakumo was one that Kakashi hadn't seen before because the confusion was magnified now.

_"Father, what's going on?" Kakashi asked cautiously. _

Inoichi was so surprised he nearly canceled the technique as he felt pain on his left cheek as Kakashi fell to the ground, having been struck by the man.

_"Get up, and don't question me" Sakumo demanded. _

Inoichi noted that even though Kakashi's mind supplied that the man didn't smell like alcohol, Sakumo was moving as if he were drunk. The blow had been hesitant as well, while it was painful to such a little kid, he could tell that Sakumo had tried to lessen it considerably.

_Sakumo eyed Kakashi critically as he complied and then turned, moving to the wall behind his desk and grabbing the katana that rested there. He made his way back over to Kakashi, unsheathing it. _

Once again, Kakashi was afraid, but this was much more than before. Inoichi could feel how tense he was at the sight of the weapon, but that Kakashi didn't dare disobey Sakumo's previous order, even as he started to shake.

"_This blade has a long history Kakashi. It belonged to your great grandparents, and has been passed down, along with our traditions of upholding Konoha's Will of Fire" Sakumo stated, eyes on the blade rather than on his son. He didn't see that Kakashi was now shaking horribly. _

Inoichi didn't like this, he had never felt like he was intruding as much as he did now, but if he ended the technique he would be forced to do it again later because leaving now would solve nothing, there was still some tampering to deal with.

_"This blade has a very important tradition which you must fight to uphold as the last Hatake" the man continued. _

Inoichi felt immense confusion from Kakashi and braced himself when Kakashi spoke again.

_"But Father, you're a Hatake" Kakashi stated. _

Inoichi's instincts were correct as he was struck again.

_"Don't interrupt me Kakashi" Sakumo ordered sternly. "As the last Hatake, you must restore our clan's honor. As a proud ninja of Konoha you must follow the shinobi code no matter what, and obey the Hokage's orders to bring glory to Konoha as our clan has always done. Do you understand?" Sakumo demanded._

_Kakashi nodded, "Yes father" he replied as he rose to his feet clumsily. That had hurt more than the last one, his vision had spotted and he felt extremely dizzy, but he didn't want to disappoint his father. _

_Sakumo regarded him critically for a moment before nodding his head in satisfaction. With a jerky motion, the katana moved across his throat and he collapsed to the floor. _

_"NO" Kakashi screamed, running to his father's side. "No, no no. Please be okay. You can hug me as much as you want, even in public. Please be okay, please" he begged. _

Inoichi was starting to feel sick, both from chakra use and from what he was witnessing, but the memory had been further tampered with past this point it seemed, and he needed to stay in order to finish removing the corruption.

He was very surprised when, from his place on the ground, Sakumo moved.

He immediately tried to change this, but became even more surprised when he realized that this wasn't a fake, Sakumo must not have cut himself deep enough to end his life immediately, but that wouldn't last for long with how much blood he was losing.

"_Kakashi, I'm so sorry. I didn't want to leave you so soon. There's not a lot of time though. You need to get out of here" Sakumo rasped out. "No, I can't leave you" Kakashi cried. Sakumo gave him a sad smile, "It's too late for me Kakashi, now do as I say. Get out of here as quickly as you can" he ordered, starting to become too weak to stay upright and collapsing to the floor. _

Inoichi once again nearly lost control of the technique again as a shadow appeared on the other side of Sakumo, meaning that someone or something was behind Kakashi.

_Sakumo saw them, eyes narrowing, "You've done enough, don't touch my son" he rasped out. He gave a strangled cry as went limp, unconscious. The lack of breathing after that showing that he had died at that moment. _

Inoichi's chakra was removing the illusions rapidly from Kakashi's mind now, and he was forced to put a lot more effort into the removal. It seemed that whoever had messed with his memory had affected it a lot at this point, attempting to hide their identity.

The sheer amount of fear Kakashi was feeling nearly threw him out and he had to add more chakra to the technique to anchor himself.

The boy turned to look behind him, and that was when this part of the memory just disappeared, it had been forcibly removed so that Kakashi wouldn't learn of their identity it seemed.

As much as he tried, he could only restore a small portion of it, a fuzzy image of a figure leaving the room as the door slammed into the wall.

Inoichi doubted that the attacker had had Inoichi's meddling in mind when he'd messed with Kakashi's memory or he would have put more effort into erasing evidence of his existence. As it was though, Inoichi had done all he could and there was no way of knowing who Kakashi had encountered.

The memory started again, Kakashi had turned away from the now open door in favor of crying over his father, obviously having been forced to forget the threat that he'd just encountered.

Even though he was sure the tampering was gone, Inoichi still moved further through the next part of the memory quickly to make sure nothing had happened later on, and marveled at the fact that it had taken nearly ten hours for anyone to find Kakashi instead of the few minutes that the reports showed.

While it was likely that Kakashi had actually remembered this, even if it conflicted with the tampered memories and the final report, it was also likely that he had been too traumatized by the experience to argue against what the report said, or had even blocked out the entire experience from his memory.

Double-checking his work, he pushed his way back out of Kakashi's mind.

"Did it work?" Minato asked frantically from his side. Apparently the man had entered the room and Inoichi wondered how long he'd been in Kakashi's mind, but figuring that out would have to wait.

Minato must have realized something was off because he frowned, "Hey, are you alright?" he questioned.

Inoichi was sure that he was pretty pale, from both the amount of chakra he had used, and what he had seen. Instead of responding, Inoichi moved to the bathroom just in time to empty the contents of his stomach.

He wasn't used to feeling emotions that intense, especially when they weren't actually his own emotions that he was feeling. Usually he stopped feeling the emotions once he left his victims mind, but the fear and pain had nearly overwhelmed him.

He supposed it had to do with Kakashi being a child when it had happened since children had less control over their emotions in general. He'd never gone that far back in anyone's memories though, so he didn't have anything to compare it to.

When he was finished he rinsed his mouth out with water from the sink's faucet and made his way back into the room where Minato was watching him in concern.

"I'm fine" he said before Minato could repeat himself, though he had to lean against the wall when he started to feel a bit dizzy. He would have to rest soon, while he knew he should eat to recover his chakra faster, that would have to wait until the nausea subsided.

"And as to whether or not it worked, I'm sure it did, but that doesn't mean much. I undid the thing that caused him to pass out in the first place, but undoing that comes with its own problems" Inoichi stated and started to explain what he had seen.

* * *

**Rin's POV**

She had been terrified when Minato had informed her that Kakashi had been taken to the hospital for unknown reasons, and even more so when she saw the state of the boy. Even unconscious, he was panting heavily, his face was extremely pale, and he was twitching a lot as if he were trapped in a nightmare.

There had been a few tests run by the hospital staff after they'd realized that they couldn't wake him up, all of them had come back without an explanation for anything.

That had been before Minato had left and brought Yamanaka Inoichi back with him, the latter saying that he had a possible explanation.

The man had been in the room with her teammate for nearly half an hour when Minato entered it quietly.

"You two wait out here. I'll inform you about what we find" he said with a pathetic attempt at a reassuring smile. Obito had been at the hospital already when she'd arrived, and from his expression he seemed to be as worried as she was.

They waited in silence for a few minutes, both lost in thought, before Rin turned to Obito.

"What happened?" she asked worriedly.

Obito looked up at her in surprise, and then frowned. "I don't know" he said in frustration. "He was telling me about his dad and then he started acting like his head hurt, or maybe even his eye since he kept closing it for some reason, and then he pretty much begged me to get help so it had to be pretty bad" Obito explained.

Rin bit her lip. She wondered if it had to do with everything that had been going on with him lately. While usually she paid a lot of attention to him anyway, the last couple weeks she had kept an eye on him more than ever. Even his abrupt change of heart about her, though it had been welcomed, was worrisome. From the way Obito was acting, she only got more worried. Obito didn't like Kakashi, so to see him like this meant it had to be something really bad.

"Rin" Obito got her attention, his tone of voice and expression confusing her, he was never this serious.

"Kakashi isn't okay, is he?" he asked, meeting her eye.

Her first instinct was to lie and say that Kakashi was just fine. She doubted her silver haired teammate would be alright with her mentioning anything that she had witnessed such as his crying, but as soon as her tears started to fall she knew that Obito wouldn't buy it.

"I don't think he is. I really don't think he is" she cried. She was sure Obito was surprised when she threw her arms around him in a hug which he awkwardly returned.

She released him several minutes later when the door opened to reveal Minato. She looked at him questioningly, seeing Obito blushing a bit out of the corner of her eye at Minato's scrutiny.

"Did it work?" Rin asked hurriedly. "Is he gonna be okay?" Obito added.

Minato gave a sad smile to each of them. "We don't know. We'll have to see as soon as he wakes up" he replied.

Behind him the door was pushed open further as Inoichi stepped out. He looked pretty terrible, his face was pale and he was a bit shaky. "You should be fine to sit with him if you want. I'll be back later if he requests it when he wakes up" Inoichi told them before heading for the stairs.

Minato frowned, "Do you want some help?" he asked. Inoichi just shook waved him off, "I'll be fine. Look after Kakashi" he requested and kept going.

"Thank you" Minato called after him gratefully before ushering them into the room, "Let's sit with him, at least until visiting hours are over" he suggested.

Kakashi still looked pretty bad, but it looked like he was now sleeping normally. For the next few hours they sat quietly, or spoke in whispers, as they watched over their teammate.

* * *

**Kakashi's POV**

He felt as if he'd overused his sharingan as he woke. His head was throbbing painfully and he almost wished that he was still unconscious.

Flashes of hours before entered his mind, along with more bits of memory.

It was his dream, but not at the same time. He remembered everything as if it had happened just the day before.

Slowly and reluctantly he opened his eyes. The room was dark, and he could see from the outside that it was night.

Shifting, he felt Pakkun wake up from his spot curled up at Kakashi's side.

He yawned and turned to eye Kakashi critically. "You're awake" the pug, relief evident in his voice. Kakashi just nodded dully in response, he didn't even have the energy to focus on his ninken.

"Your team was here earlier, but they got kicked out because visiting hours ended. They let me stay since I'm registered as your ninken. Urushi and Uuhei are watching Bull and Shiba and Minato headed over to check on them when he left. Did you want to talk about what happened?" he asked.

Kakashi just shook his head, continuing to stare at the ceiling.

He didn't feel like talking at all, let alone about what had occurred. His father had been trying to protect him before he'd died? And Kakashi had been there the entire time?

While he had been pretty young and wouldn't have noticed, the memories were very clear, and he was certain that his father was acting so out of character, and had even killed himself, because of either tampering with his mind, or a genjutsu of some sort.

Sure, Kakashi probably couldn't have saved him with this knowledge anyway since the man had died before he'd been attacked, but he could have at least identified the person that had led his father to his death. The only thing was, he didn't remember who he'd seen when he'd turned to face them. No matter how much he focused, all he saw was a blurry shape heading out of the room.

Why was he remembering now though? He hadn't remembered it even twenty years into the future. Was it because he was talking about it with Inoichi and thinking about it more now?

Pakkun thankfully didn't press him for information, just nuzzled him.

"Take as much time as you want pup. For now get some rest. I'll see you in the morning" Pakkun curled up at his side once again, but Kakashi could tell he didn't go back to sleep. That sounded like a good idea though, and barely a second later he was out.

* * *

**Minato's POV**

When he'd arrived with Rin and Obito the next day they had all been glad to see that he was awake, but their relief had been quickly crushed. Kakashi barely reacted to their presence, and wouldn't speak, even to the worried pug.

They had called in Inoichi, and he'd had no luck either, but suggested that once the doctors gave him the okay that they take him back to his house and try and keep him to a normal routine.

He had explained that he would be useless in this matter; that Kakashi would talk when he was ready, and that he should be around friendly faces until that time.

That was why he was now making tea in the kitchen while Pakkun watched over Kakashi as he took a shower.

Despite their protests, Minato had sent Rin and Obito home; he didn't want to have too many people around in case it increased Kakashi's stress. He had told them to visit later.

The tea had just finished and he nearly dropped the kettle when he heard Pakkun's sharp order from down the hall.

"JUST PUT IT DOWN". Quickly placing the kettle on the counter, Minato raced out of the kitchen and in the direction of Pakkun's voice. He became more worried when he realized that one of the rooms Kakashi had sworn that he would never enter was wide open. Wasting no time, he moved inside, eyes widening at the sight.

* * *

**Kakashi's POV**

The next time he'd woken up, he'd felt numb all over.

His teammates, Pakkun, Inoichi, and the hospital staff had tried to get a reaction from him, but he couldn't bring himself to do anything. He didn't even remember the walk home he was so lost in thought. He could sense his team and Pakkun around him, but didn't really pay them much attention.

Obito being crushed and then being isolated from the team had been his fault because had he not abandoned Rin, then it wouldn't have happened. Rin wouldn't have been forced out of Konoha and subsequently killed had he not accepted the sharingan.

Minato wouldn't have died had Kakashi volunteered to take his place sealing the Kyuubi, he didn't have a family like Minato had after all. Sasuke wouldn't have left the village had he been a bit more attentive.

Sakura wouldn't have been torn to pieces had he trained her better.

Naruto wouldn't have had the Kyuubi forcibly pulled from his body before Sasuke had tortured him for his remaining time had Kakashi not ignored him in favor of Sasuke for so long.

Konoha wouldn't have fallen so quickly had he been there to help, or had he at least been able to bring allies for them.

The second generation Ino-Shika-Cho team wouldn't have been slaughtered had he been a better teacher, or even had he been quick enough to reach them and assist. And now he learned that his dad had died protecting him, and he didn't even have the necessary knowledge to find the person from his memory.

He felt a hand settle on his shoulder and dimly realized that he had somehow reached his home and Minato was helping him up the steps.

"How about you go take a shower? Get yourself cleaned up" Minato suggested gently. He didn't sense Rin or Obito, they had probably gone home. Kakashi just nodded listlessly in response, made his way inside, and headed down the hallway and into the bathroom on auto-pilot.

When he'd finished showering and put on a fresh set of clothing, he'd been about to follow the pug back to the kitchen when he caught sight of the door to his father's office. He turned around and moved in that direction instead, turning the knob and pushing it open before making his way inside.

* * *

**Pakkun's POV**

He had been leading his packmate to Minato when he'd heard the click of a door behind him. Frowning he turned to see Kakashi was no longer behind him, and headed back in the direction that he'd come from, eyes widening when he saw that the door to Sakumo's office was wide open.

He cautiously looked inside and what he saw nearly made his heart stop.

"Pup?" he asked cautiously, taking a quick look around the room before refocusing on Kakashi, padding closer to him.

Kakashi stood by his father's desk, holding the katana that he'd removed from its place on the wall, unsheathed.

"I was here when my father died" Kakashi told him distantly, the first words he'd spoken since the hospital.

"We can talk about that in your room or with Minato in the kitchen okay? Just please put it back" Pakkun requested softly.

He had no idea what was running through Kakashi's mind at this moment, but there was no way that it was anything good.

"Someone must have tampered with my memories of that night because I remember now that someone was in the room with me, though I don't know who. I wonder why I suddenly started to remember" Kakashi continued as if he hadn't heard the pug.

"I don't know, just please put it down" Pakkun whimpered.

"All my life everyone around me has died, and I've never been strong enough to protect them. I just keep on surviving, even after they're gone" Kakashi continued.

"Fine pup. JUST PUT IT DOWN" the pug ordered, not sure if he could handle any more of this.

That had the desired effect and the katana dropped to the floor. Kakashi turned, looking at Pakkun as if he'd just realized he was there.

The two stared at each other in silence for a moment before Kakashi crouched down and opened his arms. Pakkun didn't need any more prompting and bounded into them.

"Don't scare me like that pup" he requested shakily.

"I'm sorry" Kakashi said back softly, hugging the pug tightly.

Pakkun looked back at Minato who had just arrived outside of the door, staring at them with a stunned look on his face.

"Wh-what's going on in here?" he finally found his voice to ask, eyes looking between the two and the katana on the floor.

"Let's go somewhere else" Pakkun requested firmly. He didn't want to be here any longer than they already had, and he especially didn't want Kakashi here. He felt Kakashi nod as the boy rose to his feet and carried Pakkun out of the room.

He relaxed a bit when Minato closed the door behind them firmly.

Soon the two humans were seated at the table with Pakkun on Kakashi's lap.

"Do you want to tell me what that was about?" Minato asked Kakashi after a few moments. Pakkun's ears perked up, he wanted to hear this as well.

"I wasn't going to do anything with it" Kakashi mumbled, not meeting his sensei's eye.

"Kakashi" Pakkun felt his packmate flinch at the tone as he looked up.

"I'm sorry sensei, but I really wasn't going to do anything" Kakashi swore.

* * *

**Minato's POV**

He wanted to believe Kakashi, he really did, but finding him in that room, not to mention with the weapon that his father had killed himself with, made him extremely uneasy.

There was also the fact that Pakkun had been terrified by Kakashi's actions, and even still seemed to be to an extent. Minato doubted Pakkun would let Kakashi leave his sights for the next several days, maybe even weeks.

"Pack your things" he ordered after giving it barely any thought. Kakashi needed to be supervised, and while his ninken would keep him out of trouble, Minato would feel a lot better if he could keep an eye on his student as well.

"Sensei?" Kakashi asked in confusion.

Minato sighed, "I don't want you on your own. You're coming to live with me for a little while. No arguments" he ordered when Kakashi looked ready to protest.

"My ninken" he still argued. Minato rose to his feet, "They can come as well, I've got enough room for them, and they're all pretty well behaved" he dismissed, cleaning off the table mess.

"Now hurry up" he ordered when Kakashi didn't move.

With a frown, Kakashi rose and gently set the pug on the floor before doing as he'd been told.

"Thank you" Pakkun told Minato gratefully before following after Kakashi quickly.

Minato wasn't sure what he'd done to deserve thanks for. He hadn't noticed how far Kakashi was falling until Inoichi had spoken to him. Now that his memories had been restored, Kakashi could start healing, but it would take a while.

Thankfully Kakashi had somewhat been able to repair the rift between him and his teammates, they would be a big help according to Inoichi.

As helpless as he felt, he couldn't just do nothing though, and hoped that he mattered enough to Kakashi to get him to open up some more.

Kakashi soon came back carrying a small bag in one hand and a dog carrier holding an uneasy looking Shiba in the other. He was at least doing better than when Kakashi had gotten him it looked like.

Before he would have been barking loud enough that Kakashi's neighbors would have heard him, and the nearest neighbor was probably more than half a mile away.

He had been surprised when Tsume had informed him that Shiba's hearing was extremely sensitive because he was by far the loudest of all Kakashi's pack.

Next to him Pakkun was carrying a small bag. Behind him Uuhei was herding the overexcited mastiff towards them and Urushi was looking at Minato with a frown. Obviously he wanted to know what exactly was going on.

"I'll carry Bull if that's alright with him" Minato offered.

"He would let an enemy ninja threatening him with a kunai carry him" Kakashi said with a shake of his head in exasperation. Minato raised an eyebrow at that and when he picked up the mastiff, Bull barked a happy greeting and tried to lick him.

Soon they were on their way. Minato was sure that they looked pretty strange as they walked through the village.

He was trying to hold onto the squirming dog as Bull tried to sniff everything and greet everyone, he really should have been put in a carrier as well.

Shiba was yipping unhappily as the noises around the village reached his ears.

Uuhei was prancing around them in circles.

Pakkun and Urushi were trotting along silently, probably the only normal looking ones of the group, and most people weren't used to seeing these ninken around the village much, at least anymore, so they were stared at as well.

When they reached the house Minato set Bull down and the excited puppy raced off to inspect everything.

"He's paper trained right?" Minato asked warily.

"Nope" Kakashi replied, setting the carrier down and taking Shiba out, allowing him to settle in his arms. Minato winced at that, but there wasn't much he could do except request that Kakashi take him outside every couple of hours.

"I watch him" Urushi told the man as he trotted after Bull.

"You can go set your stuff in the guest room, just down the hall, last door on your right" Minato told him as he winced at the sound of a thud in his living room. He turned to see a few books on the floor from where Bull had run into his coffee table, Urushi just looked at him apologetically.

It looked like he would have to puppy-proof his apartment.

* * *

**Inoichi's POV**

He had to wait to talk with Kakashi before he could tell anyone but Minato what he'd seen.

He shouldn't have even talked to the man about Kakashi's true memories, but it had been necessary since someone close to the kid needed to know what he was dealing with. He had also decided that he needed to give a bit of information about what Kakashi had been feeling so that Minato would have a better idea of what to expect, even though he felt like he was betraying the boy's trust.

While he was really curious about the events, as well as the strange memories, Kakashi wasn't in any condition to talk to him. Even the Hokage would have to wait for a full explanation, having received just the facts from Inoichi, not even the full extent of what had happened with Kakashi, he'd been told even less than Minato in that regard.

Inoichi definitely didn't feel comfortable with explaining any more than he had already done to the Hokage though, and would have to ask for Kakashi's permission before he could share much more.

That didn't mean he had to stop his part of the investigation, but that was dangerous in itself.

While before he had known that they were looking for an actual murderer, it hadn't really crossed his mind, probably because he didn't want to think such things, that the person had been a Konoha citizen.

That seemed to be the only explanation for what Sakumo had been saying though, how Kakashi needed to be loyal to Konoha and uphold Konoha's honor.

There was no way that Sakumo's mind hadn't also been tampered with.

The telltale signs were there, his strange movement, his out of character behavior towards his son, and even the fact that he hadn't been able to kill himself with one stroke of the blade. If he had been trying to kill himself he would have been dead immediately, but the way he'd held the weapon, it was as if he was trying to stop himself.

There were only a couple of things he could do now though, he had to wait for orders from the Hokage, or wait for Kakashi to show some improvement.

In the meantime he would discreetly look into whatever information he could gather to determine why the memories that probably shouldn't have even been in Kakashi's mind, were present.

* * *

**Kakashi's POV**

He felt extremely guilty about how much he'd scared Pakkun, and could see that Minato had been pretty afraid as well.

He honestly hadn't been going to do anything with the katana though. Kakashi didn't really even remember entering into the room, he'd been sort of out of it since he'd been in the hospital and Pakkun had broken him out of his internal pity party when he'd shouted at him. He'd been surprised and had dropped the katana before instantly trying to calm down the frantic pug.

Another wave of guilt slammed him when Minato told him that he would be staying at the blonde's apartment.

He was getting tired of making everyone worry about him. Kakashi carefully closed the door behind Pakkun when the pug had entered and set Shiba down on the floor so that he could do his inspection of the place while he started to unpack his things.

He didn't bring much, just his clothing for himself, and a few toys that Bull, Shiba, and Uuhei liked. Pakkun and Urushi didn't play with them much anymore, but sometimes would, especially if the younger three wanted to.

He hadn't brought food for them, he'd started to run low and would have to stop by Tsume's to see about getting some more later today.

"Pup, we need to talk" Pakkun stated from his spot on the bed as he sternly observed the silver haired chuunin.

Kakashi winced, but nodded.

"Do you even have any idea of what you're doing? I get that you're now in the past and everything, and you didn't plan on it, but you can't just take things one day at a time like you have been" Pakkun growled, he'd lowered his voice so that Kakashi could barely hear him in case he had listeners outside of the room.

"I know" Kakashi replied quietly.

He needed to start planning and getting things back on track.

True, even at the age of thirty he'd been stuck in the past, visiting the Memorial Stone daily, talking to Rin, Minato, and Obito about everything. Kakashi had started to become less focused on the world around him in that time and more than once Gai had insisted that he stop living in the past.

After he'd been assigned a team he'd started to get a bit better, especially after Sasuke had abandoned the village and he'd been forced to deal with the aftermath, mainly in regards to his other two students.

"We're going to make a plan as soon as we get a moment to ourselves, and you're going to stick to it" Pakkun said sternly before jumping off the bed and waiting for Kakashi to let him out. Kakashi gave a weak smile at that, of course his ninken would always be there to help him out when he needed them.

As soon as he opened the door Pakkun exited and Shiba took that moment to squirm his way through the opening when Kakashi had tried to step through.

"Shiba" he called. The puppy turned and wagged his tail, yipping at Kakashi, before moving into the living room.

Kakashi raised an eyebrow but followed him. He barely made it into the living room before he was pulled into a tight hug, he tensed in response.

"I was so worried" he immediately recognized Kushina's voice and forced himself to calm down. She released him a moment later.

"I'm fine" he told her.

She glared at him for the outright lie before her features softened, "I wanted to come visit you when you were in the hospital, but I was just getting back from a mission when I learned, and then you'd been released and..." she trailed off, looking down at him worriedly.

"I wasn't really up for visitors anyway" he replied.

Kushina frowned and then turned to Minato when he entered the room, "I'm going to go get some lunch for us, and pick up some food for your ninken. I should be back in a little while" he told Kakashi.

Now it was Kakashi's turn to frown, Kushina was here to babysit him? He didn't protest though, he had upset Minato enough for today, hell, even this year. Kakashi nodded in response as Minato left the apartment.

There was an awkward silence for a few minutes after he left before Kushina broke it.

"Let's go sit down" she suggested. Soon they were sitting on the couch, once again there was an awkward silence.

Thankfully this time it was Shiba who broke it by pawing insistently at his leg. He had succeeded in wrestling a toy away from Uuhei and wanted to play with Kakashi.

Grateful for the distraction, Kakashi lowered himself to the floor and started to roll the ball gently for him, he didn't want Minato's house destroyed after all. Bull soon joined into the game as well, both wrestling each other for the prize.

This had been going on for ten minutes when all of the ninken tensed and their gazes shot to Kushina, eying her warily.

Kakashi's eyes followed theirs and he tensed as well when he got the feel of the demonic chakra. His ninken were much more sensitive to this sort of thing, relying on instinct more than he did so they sensed it much quicker than he was able to.

Kushina looked like she had fallen asleep and was now waking up, but Kakashi knew better.

He reached for his weapon's pouch, only to find that it wasn't there, he must have forgotten to grab it with all the thoughts that had been on his mind.

Kushina's eyes snapped open a moment later and Kakashi's eyes narrowed, especially when a very uncharacteristic smirk crossed Kushina's features.

The voice was similar to Kushina's, but there was no way he could mistake the two. While Kushina usually had a playful quality to her speech, this voice was completely cold and made him shiver involuntarily, "Now now, show some respect human, it's not every day that I lower myself to speak with one of you worthless meat sacks".

* * *

Thanks for reading, I'd be grateful if you'd take the time to review.


	8. Revelations and Betrayal

Disclaimer: Naruto isn't mine. If it was then the people who were recently killed off, wouldn't have died (sorry, don't want to spoil it if you haven't read it).

Author's Note: Really really really sorry. My computer died and I don't feel comfortable working on this in a public place. But, I've got my computer back, I took a couple weeks to get back into the story, and now I'm back. Updates might be a little less frequent, I'm getting close to taking finals, but I'm definitely going to keep the story going.

I wasn't too sure about this chapter, it has a lot of stuff in it and it's been a while since I wrote for this story so it might be a bit boring. Tell me what you think.

Beated by ECDL

* * *

_L__ast time with Inoichi_

"_And as to whether or not it worked, I'm sure it did, but that doesn't mean much. I undid the thing that caused him to pass out in the first place, but undoing that comes with its own problems" Inoichi stated and started to explain what he had seen._

_There were only a couple of things he could do now though, he had to wait for orders from the Hokage, or wait for Kakashi to show some improvement. In the meantime he would discreetly look into whatever information he could gather to determine why the memories that probably shouldn't have even been there, were present._

_Last time with Kakashi_

"_Pack your things" he ordered after giving it barely any thought. Kakashi needed to be supervised, and while his ninken would keep him out of trouble, Minato would feel a lot better if he could keep an eye on his student as well._

_Kushina's eyes snapped open a moment later and Kakashi's eyes narrowed, especially when a very uncharacteristic smirk crossed Kushina's features. The voice was similar to Kushina's, but there was no way he could mistake the two. While Kushina usually had a playful quality to her speech, this voice was completely cold and made him shiver involuntarily, "Now now, show some respect human, it's not every day that I lower myself to speak with one of you worthless meat sacks"_

* * *

**Kakashi's POV**

He moved towards the coffee table as he warily eyed the creature possessing Kushina.

While there were no weapons nearby, that didn't mean he was totally defenseless. He could escape if necessary, he figured, if he could distract the demon long enough.

True, the coffee table would make a pitiful shield against a demonic assault, and throwing the objects on the table (mostly books), would probably only make the creature angry, but it was better than nothing.

If necessary he would attempt a technique, but that could be just as, if not more, problematic since he still hadn't had time to start regaining control and would probably overpower anything he tried.

Pakkun, Urushi, and Uuhei were growling fiercely at the demon possessing Kushina's body, they were at Kakashi's side, ready to attack should it be necessary. Though most dogs would have liked to give into their instincts and flee, these three wouldn't leave Kakashi behind.

Shiba had frozen when he'd sensed the demonic presence, but now frantically removed himself from Kakashi's hold and raced into the bedroom Kakashi was using. Bull had already taken cover somewhere in the same room. While the laid-back and somewhat lazy puppy wasn't very good at reading situations at this age, he wasn't foolish enough to ignore the threat that a being possessing this sort of chakra could impose.

"Fox got your tongue?" the demon jested, watching him in amusement and ignoring Kakashi's most likely obvious attempts to protect himself.

"How are you…?" Kakashi trailed off, uncertain of what exactly he wanted to ask.

This had never been possible the first time, at least, not that he'd ever heard. Kushina had always taken great care to prevent the beast from influencing her. He'd only ever heard about the woman losing control on the battlefield, and she was always quick to reign herself in and prevent being taken over.

Of course, Kakashi hadn't been informed that it was the Kyuubi's doing until much later, he hadn't learned about the Kyuubi until around the time Kushina had been close to delivering Naruto and Minato had started setting up a safe house with Kakashi's assistance.

That didn't change the fact that this shouldn't be happening now.

Kushina's eyes, which had taken longer to change that Naruto's did when he was possessed, were now red with black slits in them. The rest of the changes though, like the elongated nails, and the fangs did not occur. He guessed it was either because Kushina might detect what the demon was doing if that much chakra was used, or that an increase in the amount of chakra would be detected by others in the village, so the demon wasn't exerting as much control over this host.

The demon didn't give Kakashi much time to gather his thoughts before it seemed to get annoyed with his lack of speech.

"If you do not know, foolish creature, I am the Kyuubi no Kitsune. And you really aren't in any position to be asking for anything from me. No. I'm merely here so that you may explain yourself" the demon told him.

"Explain myself?" Kakashi questioned, finding his voice.

This earned him an exasperated sigh and the demon forced itself to rise, ungainly in Kushina's body. This was somewhat good for Kakashi, it showed that the demon wasn't even in full control of Kushina's limbs and the possibility of escape looked more possible.

Kakashi quickly shifted back and the two ninken and Uuhei moved forward, ready to attack. He would have loved to get them out of there, but the only exits were blocked, and he didn't want to give the demon any reason to kill them.

The Kyuubi once again seemed amused, and its actions made Kakashi think that maybe the demon hadn't taken control to kill him. It stopped a few feet away from the group, gazing at him steadily and ignoring the dogs as if they weren't worth its time.

"I would like to know why one of your kind was able to traverse the time stream. More than that however, I would very much like an explanation as to why" the Kyuubi told him, though the demand for information was clear in its tone.

"I don't know what you're talking about" Kakashi replied, voice weakening as a bit of killing intent washed over him, and he knew from experience that this was nothing compared to the amount that the Kyuubi could generate.

For once he was grateful that the demon was sealed into Kushina. While he hated the creature and didn't like that Kushina was a jinchuuriki, right now it was probably the only thing keeping them from death since the demon couldn't alert Kushina to its small bit of freedom without being locked up tighter.

The demon growled. From experience Kakashi knew that it wasn't all that patient when it came to humans.

Before any of them could register what was happening, Kakashi was pinned to the ground under Kushina's weigh.

The three dogs were growling, but Kakashi shook his head, "Stay put" he ordered them sharply. He couldn't have them hurting Kushina, if he was right all he had to do now was stall for time and the demon would sense Minato returning and retreat, or Kushina might even start to wake up.

"Do not lie to me human. You know perfectly well what I'm talking about and you will tell me what I wish to know" it demanded, eyes narrowed and teeth bared, though they had not turned into fangs.

Kakashi flinched slightly as blood began to drip from his arm and he spared a glance down to Kushina's hands where they were starting to form claws. If the demon wasn't careful it was going to wake up its host.

Kushina had probably lost control like this before without ever learning about it.

If she did find out though, there was a pretty good chance that she would report it to someone and then it was likely that she would get locked up or even killed. Besides, in this case the seal was different.

Kakashi wasn't sure why the Kyuubi hadn't done anything if it could possess Kushina for even this little bit of time because Kushina's soul wasn't linked with the demon's as Naruto's had been. That had been a modification Minato had added to his seal.

The Kyuubi could have killed Kushina and escaped if it wished, had it been able to do this all along, but for some reason it seemed to be biding its time. Of course, there was the chance that the demon was unaware of this, and Kakashi certainly wasn't going to bring this to its attention.

"No" Kakashi replied, more shakily than he would have liked.

The Kyuubi snarled, digging its claws in a bit more before climbing off of Kakashi and moving towards the kitchen.

Kakashi signaled the three with him to head towards the bedroom, hoping that they would grab the puppies and escape if it became necessary. They hesitantly complied, obviously wanting to stay and help Kakashi.

From the kitchen he heard water running and figured the demon was washing Kakashi's blood off of Kushina's hands, it was probably nervous about the same thing as Kakashi, alerting Kushina to its presence.

Kakashi had been about to follow the dogs out when the demon reentered the room, taking a seat on the couch.

"It looks like my host is starting to wake up. Such a pity we didn't have longer to talk. Be warned human, any little thing that you do can change things irreparably, if you even think about informing the other humans about this my host could be killed. You wouldn't want that would you? From my host's memories I can see that you care for one another. And tread lightly, even something little can destroy everything you're working towards and wouldn't that be a pity" despite the warning, the Kyuubi's tone told Kakashi that the demon wasn't trying to be helpful.

"Don't expect that this is the last time you'll hear from me" the beast finished with a growl as it settled back into the seat to relinquish control back to Kushina again.

Kakashi could feel the demonic chakra starting to recede, and could see that Kushina's features were returning to normal. Soon she was asleep once again.

"Pup?" Pakkun asked warily, standing in the hallway, tensed and ready to attack the woman if necessary.

"She's a jinchuuriki, I'll answer your questions later. For now we're safe" Kakashi told the pug quietly as he rose to his feet, keeping his eye on Kushina. She was definitely asleep now and he didn't sense any more of the demonic presence.

"None of you attack her alright" he ordered, seeing Urushi and Uuhei gazing at him questioningly from behind Pakkun, "Go check on Bull and Shiba, I need to take care of this" he told them, gesturing to his arms as he cupped his hands under them awkwardly to stop the blood from dripping, then headed to the bathroom.

These injuries would make it harder to hide what had just happened. Even without the Kyuubi's warning he would never say anything that could get Kushina into trouble.

As he dug through the medicine cabinet and pulled out the disinfectant and bandages he thought about the new development.

While the Kyuubi had started to help Naruto in the future, it had taken quite a while for Naruto to gain the demon's trust, and even more before the demon was willing to assist them in any capacity. Even after it had started working with them, the Kyuubi still had a disdain for the human species and had its own well being in mind when helping even if it had grudgingly given Naruto its respect.

Kakashi didn't want to give the demon any help that might allow it to become free anytime in the future, well, before Naruto was able to get it under control in the future anyway. Of course, that was if Naruto became the jinchuuriki, and that might not even happen if he was able to save Kushina. He still had a lot more thinking and planning to do on the subject.

"Pup, are you sure this is okay?" Pakkun asked, allowing the other two to look after Bull and Shiba and taking seat at Kakashi's feet.

Kakashi nodded as he pulled the bandage a bit tighter, "It wasn't able to hurt me too much without giving itself away" he responded.

Pakkun frowned and shook his head, "No, I mean, not reporting it. Clearly this demon, the Kyuubi I guess it said, is dangerous" he insisted.

Kakashi sighed, taping the bandage down before starting on his other arm. "Look, I'm not too happy about it either, but I can't change things now, you know that. Just because it's a demon doesn't mean it's not right. I have to be careful, and this would change so many things that I wouldn't have any way of knowing would happen in the future if I did tell someone" Kakashi said.

Pakkun's frown deepened but he nodded, "Alright," he finally agreed reluctantly, "but, if you end up injured by this thing again then I'm telling somebody" he threatened, giving Kakashi a stern look that told him he would do as he said.

Kakashi nodded, not expecting anything less from the overprotective pug.

* * *

**Inoichi's POV**

It hadn't taken long before he had been summoned by the Hokage and was currently sitting in front of the man's desk with Shikaku leaning up against the wall on his left.

The other two were thinking and he was fidgeting a bit because he'd already spent the entire night thinking about what he'd witnessed and figured he'd drawn every conclusion he could think of.

While he hadn't wanted to share too much about everything and betray Kakashi's trust, a murder investigation had been opened up, albeit discreetly. Therefore it was necessary to get both the Hokage and Shikaku up to date on everything that he knew, though he had tried to protect Kakashi's personal thoughts and emotions as much as he could.

"It looks like our investigation's going to get a lot harder" Shikaku finally said with a sigh, moving to take the chair he'd been offered for once.

"So it would seem, however, we at least know most, if not all, of our suspects" the Third stated, apparently done thinking over everything as well.

"That's not fully what I'm worried about though" Inoichi admitted, "I'm more worried about what Kakashi's reaction will be when he finds out that someone from Konoha is behind this. I mean, this happened quite a while ago so I'm not as concerned about the attacker right now, they can wait a little while longer if they've waited this long, especially if we keep this between just a few people. Kakashi's still recovering though, so he hasn't had time to really let it sink in, but when he does he's going to start questioning why a Konoha ninja killed his father" Inoichi told them.

"If it was a Konoha ninja" Shikaku added.

Inoichi frowned, "Realistically it doesn't make any sense for it not to be. I get what you're saying, but why would someone go through all that trouble to make Kakashi try and be loyal to the village, and then erase his memories that it had happened? Nobody could have counted on Inori trying something like she did" he argued.

The Third sighed, "Both of you have valid points, but think of it this way, Sakumo failed to kill himself" he hinted.

Inoichi frowned in confusion, that didn't help him at all, but Shikaku nodded, "Exactly" he responded.

Inoichi sheepishly raised his hand, "I don't understand" he admitted.

Shikaku sighed as if Inoichi was burdening him with a lot of hard-work and Inoichi's eye twitched in irritation.

"The plan wasn't for Sakumo to survive slitting his throat. The plan was for Kakashi to see his father kill himself after 'repenting' for what he'd done, and then become a loyal Konoha ninja because it was his father's dying wish. But that's not what happened, Sakumo prevented himself from dying long enough to give Kakashi a warning. I'm not sure why the person felt the need to change everything up until that point instead of just erasing their existence and the last bit of Sakumo's life, but they did. Looking at it this way, you're conclusion is the most logical. We just can't rule anything out yet even if our main focus should be on finding a Konoha ninja" Shikaku explained.

Inoichi nodded in understanding.

That explained pretty much everything he wanted to know, but there was still something nagging in the back of his mind that told him something else was going on. The problem was that he wasn't sure how exactly to ask Shikaku about it since he didn't have any idea what was bothering him.

Thankfully Shikaku was thinking along the same lines, "My problem with this entire situation is the fact that the kid was able to remember at all. I mean, it would have been safer for them if he never remembered, and Kakashi-kun wouldn't have noticed the small bit of memory missing since I doubt he was watching the clock or anything to show that he was missing some time" Shikaku said, looking at Inoichi questioningly to see if his explanation of erasing a memory was correct.

That was definitely what had confused Inoichi.

With Sakumo, it had to have taken a very long time to manipulate his mind, so long that most people wouldn't have bothered. He had a better mental defense than Kakashi, and even being able to manipulate someone to kill themselves would have been extremely difficult.

With Kakashi though, from what he could tell the manipulation hadn't lasted very long at all even though it had been hours before he'd been found. True, it had been long enough that it had done its purpose, but the attacker had had more time to work. Whoever it was had to have had a very good reason to only erase part of Kakashi's memories, or at least to leave at the time that they had.

There was something Inoichi was missing though, but he couldn't think of exactly what it was related to and it was bothering him quite a bit.

They all turned when they saw movement out of the corner of their eye to see Minato looking at them from the window. He waved sheepishly at being caught.

With a sigh the Hokage opened the window for him and Minato stepped down into the room.

"How long have you been there Minato?" the aged leader asked.

"Long enough to see Kakashi's name brought up. You should really do something about your security. Why wasn't I consulted? You're investigating his father's murder right?" he questioned, looking between the three men expectantly.

The Third sighed but nodded, "That is correct" he told him, ignoring the rest of what Minato had said, before handing him the file of what they had gathered so far. He didn't have any reason to hide it, especially since Minato was Kakashi's legal guardian. Of course, what Inoichi had discovered wasn't in the file, but since he'd filled the blonde in at the hospital there was no need to go through it again.

Minato silently looked through the file before frowning, "Emi Michiko? Why haven't you spoken with her yet? She was there that night right?" he asked.

That was it! Whoever had attacked Kakashi had also had time to attack Kakashi's babysitter, but that would have meant that they knew Kakashi was going to be babysat that night and gone to meet her before she could arrive.

Around him there was silence for a moment before Shikaku huffed and shook his head in response to Minato's question, "We can't. She died in the hospital a week after Sakumo's death. She started experiencing hallucinations and displaying violent behavior aimed at allies and civilians" he informed the blonde.

* * *

**Kushina's POV**

Kushina hadn't noticed that she'd even been tired, but she must have been because she found herself waking up.

She frowned as she sat up, looking around for Kakashi. He wasn't here, and neither were his ninken, though she could hear the sound of what she guessed was one of the younger two whimpering from down the hall.

She made her way there to see Kakashi with Bull whimpering in his lap as he tried to coax the whimpering Shiba out from under the desk.

She was a bit surprised to see Kakashi wearing a sweatshirt, but dismissed it to focus on Shiba.

The mutt was pressed back against the wall and shaking horribly. Though Kakashi could easily have grabbed him and dragged him out, Kushina figured he was in danger of being bit if he tried, judging from how freaked out Shiba was.

"What's wrong?" she asked in concern. She didn't miss how Kakashi tensed and reached to where his weapon's pouch was usually located before he could stop himself, or how Urushi and Uuhei both shifted as though they were going to attack her.

She didn't blame really blame Kakashi after what he'd been through, and he'd always been sort of high strung, but the ninken's reaction was very strange since they should have sensed her before that moment.

Kakashi glanced over at her, careful to keep his hold on Bull since he was now shaking again. "Nothing, I just um, dropped a book and startled them" he told her, definitely not believably.

She stared at Kakashi incredulously for how terrible the lie was, but he had turned his focus back to the puppies.

Pakkun moved around her from the hallway she had come from and turned to her, "It might be easier to calm them down if there aren't so many distractions in the room" he told her, and she was surprised at the slight edge to his tone since he had always been polite to her the few times they'd spoken.

"He might be right, sorry, but could you all wait outside? I'll try and bring them out once they're calm" Kakashi requested politely, raising an eyebrow at the pug which received a sheepish look in return before he went back into the hallway, the other two ninken following behind.

Kushina was horribly confused, but if Bull and Shiba were that upset then the pug was probably correct in his assessment, especially since they hadn't really been exposed to Kushina before. She'd have to find out what this was really about later though.

"Okay" she muttered, before moving back into the other room and taking her seat on the couch, wondering if it was her imagination that the two ninken and Uuhei were now avoiding her.

* * *

**Kakashi's POV**

Bull hadn't been all that easy to coax out, but Shiba had been impossible. After about fifteen minutes the shaking mastiff had clumsily made his way to Kakashi and was now pressed tightly against him for comfort, still shaking horribly and making high pitched whines every once in a while when Kakashi would stop petting him for a moment.

Shiba wasn't as easy to convince, and Kakashi had known he wouldn't be. As soon as Shiba had started to train and had begun to develop human speech and understanding, he hadn't been as skittish and had become a fierce fighter, but as a puppy that definitely hadn't been the case. This was worse than the first time around, but it was expected since Shiba had never come across something as terrifying as a demon that time.

"Hey Pakkun" he called quietly, not wanting to scare Shiba even further. A moment later the pug trotted into the room. "Can you look after Bull for me, it looks like it'll take me a little while longer to get Shiba out" he requested.

Pakkun frowned, "Fine, but I'm not sure they'll calm down as long as she's here" he said, earning a nod from Kakashi. He had the same feeling, but he couldn't get rid of her without telling her what had happened since Minato had insisted that she look after him while he was out getting lunch. That thought made him frown and he wondered what was taking his sensei so long to return before dismissing it and moving back to the task at hand.

Pakkun dragged the puppy over to a corner.

Seeing that Bull would be looked after for the time being, Kakashi got up to close the door to give them a bit more silence and hopefully make Shiba at least consider that there was a barrier between him and Kushina, before moving closer to the desk and crouching down.

"Hey Shiba, I'm really sorry about that. All the scariness is gone now" Kakashi told him, and continued to talk about random things to calm him down.

Shiba had started to calm down after a little while, but tensed and growled at him when Kakashi started towards him, getting worked up again.

He had started to try just talking to the puppy again, when there was a soft tap on the door.

"Kakashi" it was Minato and he moved to answer it, blocking Shiba from racing out of the room.

"I brought lunch" he had an odd expression on his face as he glanced at the two puppies, probably because Kushina had filled him in on the strange stuff that had been going on.

Kakashi nodded, turning to the three dogs, "I guess I should give them some alone time" he said with a sigh, turning to Pakkun.

"I've got them" Pakkun said before Kakashi could say anything. Kakashi nodded in thanks and followed Minato out and to the kitchen.

He sat down at the table and tried to act naturally, which was easier said than done when he was being stared at and the conversation felt really strained, but there was no way he was going to ease the awkwardness by telling them what had happened.

* * *

**Obito's POV**

Obito had been really curious about what had happened with Kakashi and, though he wouldn't admit it to anyone else, he was worried about what was going on with him. That's not to say that he liked the other boy now, he still thought Kakashi was a complete jerk, but not to the point where he wanted him to be hurt.

True, he was sure he had hurt Kakashi by digging up the memory of his father's death, but at the time he hadn't realized the effect his words would have and until Kakashi had explained things he hadn't realized how much of an ass he'd been.

It had been a huge shock to see Kakashi collapse like he had, and even more to see the state he had been in after he'd woken up in the hospital. Obito had tried to get his attention several times, but Kakashi barely reacted to anything at all and Minato had finally suggested that he and Rin visit the next day to see him after the silver haired boy was allowed to rest for a while.

Their sensei had cancelled lessons and missions for the time being, giving Obito time to train on his own, working on his new taijutsu style. Minato had offered to help him develop it a bit in the past, but Obito needed to do this on his own, to prove to his clan that he was capable of representing them.

He'd given up hope that his sharingan would activate, though he'd often mentioned it when boasting to others about his clan.

While he was still within the age range for it to activate, several Uchiha being a bit older than him when theirs showed up if it did at all, the problems that he'd had with his eyes his entire life made it extremely unlikely to occur.

Currently he was just outside of the compound walking in through the front gate with some of groceries for the rest of the week.

Usually he would take the back and climb the tree next to the wall before dropping into the backyard that was just behind his house, but it was the middle of the week in the middle of the day when most of his clan members, at least the people who were outright critical of him, weren't present.

At least, that's how things usually were. He'd been about to shout at the person who had knocked him over and spilled his bags on the ground when he noticed the cold glare being directed at him.

"Fugaku-san" Obito greeted cautiously, moving to collect his bags quickly. His action was halted as a hand reached out, grabbed his wrist roughly and jerked him back, once again making him drop everything and causing him to yelp in surprise.

"I would expect someone even as worthless as you would have been taught manners and respect" the man told him disdainfully, tightening his hold on Obito's wrist. Obito held back tears as he felt the familiar feeling of his wrist bones starting to crack.

Fugaku was a next in line for the position of clan head. Though usually the Uchiha clan operated a lot like other clans and the male heir of the clan head was the one who would take the position in the future, unfortunately for Obito the male heir had died on a mission about a year ago.

That man, well, boy, Hideki, hadn't been overly kind to Obito, but he wasn't outright harsh like Fugaku was. Hideki's death had left the clan without an heir, as the current clan head only had a daughter.

Before any of this had happened, the clan head's daughter, Uchiha Mikoto, had married Fugaku who was a very skilled ninja from a very distant part of the Uchiha family tree. It had been agreed that Fugaku possessed the skills to be a very good leader for the clan and was currently being trained to take the position sometime in the future. Obito hated him.

Fugaku was excellent, in that he was extremely concerned about increasing the power that the Uchiha clan held around the village, which Fugaku worked towards by trying to present their clan in the best light.

Unfortunately, he considered Obito to be a major obstacle in his goals, and was the reason that Obito now lived in the annex instead of with the other Uchiha.

Sure, Obito cared about his clan's image as well, but thought that the best way to portray his clan in a positive light was through action, such as fighting for the village and making connections with other. It wasn't to try and act as though their clan was superior to everyone and to try and burry anything they deemed imperfect, such as Obito.

True, like Fugaku his parents weren't too happy that he'd turned out the way he had, but they had allowed him to live with them despite how much they seemed to dislike him, and had actively tried to teach him and improve his skill.

Obito would have protested Fugaku's orders, but he had been seven when this had been decided and had taken his parents words to heart when they'd told him he was a burden. Moving into the annex had been the first step in his plan to prove them wrong, to show that he could be self-sufficient. Even if it was taking a long time for his plan to show any results, he hoped one day that he would be accepted.

Right now though, he was failing miserably to hold back his tears as well as wrench his arm out of the man's grip.

"I'm sorry" he whimpered, teeth clenched to keep from crying out.

For once Fugaku didn't take it any further than that. After tightening his hold enough that Obito felt something pop, the man threw him to the ground. "I suppose that will have to suffice for now. I would teach you proper respect, however I am late for a meeting. Do not walk the main road until you can show that you are not a complete disgrace to our clan" Fugaku ordered him, before continuing on his way.

"Bastard" Obito growled again, low enough that Fugaku couldn't hear him, before standing to gather his bags.

His left wrist was in a lot of pain, but that would have to wait until he got back home. Once everything had been picked up, except for the milk that had spilled all over the ground, he raced towards the annex.

He fumbled with the handle as he readjusted the bags, jarring his wrist painfully. He was grateful for once that his door couldn't be locked or he would have taken a lot longer to get in.

Once inside the house he carefully lowered everything to the floor, though anything breakable was probably already broken. He saw some liquids leaking out of it and some of it seeping into the carpet, but wasn't too worried. The carpet in the place was already horribly stained from the last tenant, and was so worn and torn up that it didn't matter if anything happened to it, and wasn't like the tiles were any better, giant cracks ran through them since they hadn't been replaced probably since the place had been built.

After freeing up his hands he made his way into the kitchen to sit at the table, resting his arm on it. The table was probably the nicest thing in the place, it had scratches running through it, but at least it served its purpose.

Gingerly he started to roll up his sleeve with is right hand, a few tears rolling down his cheek as his wrist throbbed at the action.

Soon he had uncovered a swollen wrist.

Despite the pain, he poked and prodded at it, finally noting with grim satisfaction that at least it wasn't broken. His reluctant attempts to move his fingers and even bend his wrist only presented pain, but he was able to, and the area wasn't numb. He knew enough from the Academy to know that this was probably just a sprain; it was better than last time when Fugaku had actually broken it. He decided he wouldn't need a doctor, that he could just wait it out.

Fumbling around a bit, he finally managed to wrap some ice in a towel and then to wrap that around the injury.

After checking to see if any of his groceries needed a refrigerator, and tossing a bag that was dripping egg everywhere, he made his way to the couch, before lying down and resting his wrist on his stomach.

He hoped he was right and he wouldn't have to go to the hospital again, he hated that place.

* * *

**Kushina's POV**

She was still confused about the sudden shift in the dog's interaction with her. Sure, animals were usually a bit wary in her presence if they could sense the Kyuubi's chakra, but she'd gained enough control over both her own and the Kyuubi chakra years before, and only on missions with Inuzuka where her control had slipped had it ever been a problem.

Her fears were put more at rest when Uuhei ended up lying his head down on her lap to sleep that afternoon, and Pakkun had lazily conversed with her when she'd asked how Bull and Shiba were.

She figured that she must have just made a sudden movement in her sleep and spooked them, and Kakashi had assured her that the two would be just fine after they had a chance to calm down. He would just need to keep them in his room for a while.

She had thought that maybe she should leave as soon as Minato returned, just in case they were actually afraid of her specifically, but Minato didn't seem to know what to say around Kakashi and things were extremely awkward.

Well, things were still awkward with her around, but eventually she managed to get Minato to calm down and stop treating Kakashi like he would break down if Minato said the wrong thing.

At last she figured they would both be fine, besides, she had a mission the next day and needed to get some rest. Looking over at Kakashi she saw that he was falling asleep where he sat on the couch next to her.

She gave a small smile and ruffled his hair. He looked over at her and blinked tiredly.

"You should get some rest Kashi-chan, I'll visit you later" she told him. He nodded and stifled a yawn, getting to his feet before heading down the hallway, the dogs following him.

"'Night sensei, 'night nee-chan" he mumbled.

The two stared after him until he'd closed himself into his room, and then Kushina turned to Minato, "Did you hear that? He just called me nee-chan dattebane" she squealed, catchphrase presenting itself in her excitement.

Minato nodded, "He was half asleep though" he pointed out, earning a glare a second before he had to dodge a swipe from Kushina.

"Let me enjoy the moment a bit longer before you ruin it" she demanded, smile returning as she headed towards the door.

"You won't be able to contact me for a little while since I'll be on a mission, but the second I return I expect you to fill me in on everything" she informed him, and with that she left.

* * *

**Minato's POV**

He had been reviewing everything he had learned that day as he'd spoken with Kakashi and Kushina. Sure, it probably made him seem a bit distant, and it was probably his fault that everything was so awkward, but it had been a lot to take in.

Inoichi had attempted to explain the technique that had been used on Kakashi as best as he could without having the actual name of it. But as far as Minato could tell, they were lucky that Kakashi hadn't met the same fate as Emi Michiko.

Minato had always known how dangerous techniques that affected a ninja's mental state could be and it looked as though Kakashi's babysitter was an example of what happened when something went wrong.

There had been a report of eyewitness statements about what exactly had occurred just before the woman's death, and he was sure she had been seeing the night Sakumo had died.

"_That bitch tried to kill me. What the hell sort of standards do you ninja have? I mean, I nearly died. I was lucky to get away with just a small cut. She just started screaming and when I tried to help her she demanded that I not go near them, whoever the hell they are, and then started going nuts and attacking everybody"_

That had been the report to the ANBU from a disgruntled civilian, and unfortunately it had been the most informative. Had ANBU not heard the commotion she would have caused a lot more damage.

As it was, Michiko had been taken to the hospital relatively quickly, and it had been obvious that she hadn't been in her right mind immediately as she screamed at someone who wasn't there. From there everything had started to go downhill. Not even an hour later she had become unresponsive, not even an hour after that she had slipped into a coma, and then had been pronounced dead just before midnight that same day.

There had been an investigation, but, as Inoichi had explained, it was impossible to detect something like this after brain function had stopped. The investigation had closed almost immediately, no official cause had been listed, but it had been suggested that a fast metabolizing poison was to blame.

Minato was a bit relieved though, to learn that Kakashi's problem with his eye had probably been linked to the altered memories.

He'd been wondering about that for a while, but other things kept taking precedence over that since Kakashi wasn't complaining about any eye problems.

While he didn't remember Kakashi's eye being hurt when he'd been younger, the Yamanaka had explained that it was likely that Kakashi was subconsciously remembering a pain from before and that it would go away with time.

Minato was pulled from his thoughts when something landed on his lap and he looked down to see Pakkun looking up at him.

"He's asleep" Pakkun told him in response to Minato's raised eyebrow.

"You look tired, you should probably go to sleep too. We'll keep an eye on Kakashi and get you if anything happens" the pug told him.

Despite his thoughts Minato smiled and nodded, shifting and picking up the dog as he rose, "Yeah, I probably should shouldn't I mom?" he asked teasingly. Pakkun huffed but didn't respond, after all, Kakashi had sarcastically called him mom for quite often when he'd gotten overly protective in the past.

"Yeah yeah" Pakkun grumbled when Minato set him down outside of the slightly ajar doorway to Kakashi's room.

"Goodnight," he said and trotted into the room, jumping up and claiming a spot next to Urushi.

Minato smiled at the group.

Uuhei was the biggest, stretched out and about Kakashi's length on Kakashi's side, Urushi was draped partially over Kakashi's legs, and Pakkun was now curled up against Urushi. Kakashi had pressed the bed up against the wall and on his other side so that both Bull and Shiba could sleep on the bed and would alert one of the others if they wanted down. Shiba seemed to have calmed down and the two puppies were now curled up together, Bull snoring quietly.

As he was leaving he noticed Urushi watching him and he gave a short wave before quietly closing the door until just a sliver of light could be let in. While the older three could figure out how to get out of a room with a closed door, it was easier for them if the door was already opened.

* * *

**Kakashi's POV**

He had slept heavily for what seemed like a great deal of time. Upon waking he had at first been curious as to why his body felt so heavy, but spotting the fact that Urushi was lying on top of him, and that Bull had moved in the night to sleep on his stomach, he quickly realized the reason.

Despite having been really tired when he'd gone to bed and sleeping soundly, he doubted he would be able to sleep again for a while.

Something was nagging at him, and he had a feeling it had woken him as well, but the answer wasn't coming to him, he couldn't remember what he'd been dreaming about.

Of course, a lot had happened to him since he'd come back to this time, especially in the past couple of days and it would probably take a while to sort it all out. He figured that now was as good a time as any to get started.

It must have been hours that he thought everything through, and had started to drift off again, when he shot upright, catching Bull as he nearly fell from the bed and earning a disgruntled look from Urushi as he was nearly thrown on the ground.

"Sorry" he murmured absently, shifting Bull back onto the bed before racing across the room to throw open the window. As soon as the cool night air hit his face he started to calm down.

"Pup?" "Kashi?" "Shi?" the two ninken and ninken-in-training were looking at him worriedly.

"I'm sorry I woke you" he panted.

"What happen?" Urushi questioned, pawing at his leg, a whimper in his voice.

"I don't know why I didn't realize it before" Kakashi mumbled in response, confusing them.

"Pup, what's going on?" Pakkun demanded.

Kakashi was sure he was upsetting the pug again, especially after what Pakkun had seen earlier.

He looked down to see the extreme worry in the three's expressions and crouched down, "It's nothing Pakkun, just me being stupid. I'm sorry, we should go back to bed" he tried.

He didn't want to burden his ninken with this on top of everything else.

That answer wasn't accepted by Pakkun and the pug glared at him, earning a small smile. "Look, really Pakkun, I'm fine. I'm just being stupid, I should have realized there was something messing with my memories before this is all" he explained.

Pakkun regarded him suspiciously for a moment but finally nodded, "Fine, get back in bed and get some rest" he ordered sternly.

Usually Kakashi would comply, but he shook his head, "Sorry Pakkun, I need some fresh air" he told him, climbing out the window with ease and glad he hadn't taken the time to change clothing before he had fallen asleep.

"Pup" Pakkun growled warningly.

"I'll be fine, you can come if you want" Kakashi offered. Pakkun didn't even take the time to think about it and was soon on Kakashi's shoulder.

"Fine, but just for a little while" he grumbled in irritation.

After making sure that Urushi and Uuhei would look after the other two they were on their way.

"Where are we going?" Pakkun asked after they had started to move towards the training grounds, and then past their usual field. Kakashi didn't answer, he was thinking about what he'd discovered, and how he was supposed to react to the realization that a Konoha ninja had killed his father.

* * *

So, any feedback is appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to read and, again, sorry for the long wait. Please review.


	9. Closer to the Truth

Disclaimer: Naruto isn't mine. If it was then there would be a lot more interactions between the teams outside of missions.

Beta-ed by ECDL

* * *

_Last Time with Kakashi_

_"It looks like my host is starting to wake up. Such a pity we didn't have longer to talk. Be warned human, any little thing that you do can change things irreparably, if you even think about informing the other humans about this my host could be killed. You wouldn't want that would you? From my host's memories I can see that you care for one another. And tread lightly, even something little can destroy everything you're working towards and wouldn't that be a pity" despite the warning, the Kyuubi's tone told Kakashi that the demon wasn't trying to be helpful._

_"Don't expect that this is the last time you'll hear from me" the beast finished with a growl as it settled back into the seat to relinquish control back to Kushina again._

_XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXX_

_"Where are we going?" Pakkun asked after they had started to move towards the training grounds, and then past their usual field. Kakashi didn't answer, he was thinking about what he'd discovered, and how he was supposed to react to the realization that a Konoha ninja had killed his father._

* * *

_Last Time with Obito_

_Soon he had uncovered a swollen wrist._

_Despite the pain, he poked and prodded at it, finally noting with grim satisfaction that at least it wasn't broken. His reluctant attempts to move his fingers and even bend his wrist only presented pain, but he was able to, and the area wasn't numb. He knew enough from the Academy to know that this was probably just a sprain; it was better than last time when Fugaku had actually broken it. He decided he wouldn't need a doctor, that he could just wait it out._

_Fumbling around a bit, he finally managed to wrap some ice in a towel and then to wrap that around the injury._

_He hoped he was right and he wouldn't have to go to the hospital again, he hated that place._

* * *

**Inoichi's POV**

His research into Kakashi's memories had led him to three possible conclusions.

He was sure that Shikaku would have found a couple that he'd missed, but he couldn't bring this up with anyone, that would definitely be a violation of his agreement with Kakashi even if most people wouldn't consider it anything to do with therapy.

If these options didn't pan out then he would have to make an exception for once. All three of the options he'd thought up were pretty dangerous, for both Kakashi and Konoha.

The first option, which he'd discarded quickly after checking a couple of books, was that he had been mistaken and that the memories were actually dreams of some sort.

Dreams could be very vivid, and in times of stress people could easily mistake dreams for memories. This was usually found in situations like torture, where a person's grip on reality became tenuous. The clarity of the images and the sheer number of them though, would have presented as other symptoms of mental stress much earlier than this, and Kakashi wouldn't have been able to function at near the level he was able.

That left him with two other options, both of them less than desirable.

The second option was that Kakashi had more memory tampering at several other points in his life.

This was the least likely option available. For one, this level of tampering would have been nearly impossible to pull off even if someone had been given access to Kakashi for days at a time to create false memories that had eventually become permanent. And the fact that the things Inoichi had seen were too random and harmless looking for anyone to go through that sort of trouble made him almost positive that that wasn't the case. Plus, Kakashi wasn't anyone of high rank or standing within the village, nothing would be gained from manipulating him to this degree (Of course, Inoichi hadn't seen any reason for manipulating his memories in the first place so it was possible he was mistaken in this assumption as well).

The final option, and the one that he hoped was wrong, could pose a serious threat to Konoha's security.

From what his couple of hours of research showed, this option wasn't impossible, though difficult. Unlike the previous option though, this could be done easily by someone from his clan as long as they had enough chakra. This option was the most likely to occur, and so with that in mind he decided he needed to talk to Kakashi, he couldn't give him any time to recover because if he was right then Kakashi would have to be taken in for questioning immediately.

He wouldn't alert anyone to this right away, except for possibly Minato if the blonde was insistent, because if he was right then that meant that there was a high likelihood that these memories did not belong to Kakashi. If this wasn't the case and he informed someone then he could destroy Kakashi's ninja career for nothing.

He planned to tell someone though, if he couldn't disprove his theory by the next morning. Even though it wasn't time sensitive, threats to village security had to be dealt with as soon as they were discovered.

* * *

**Pakkun's POV**

He watched as Kakashi ducked under a kick to his head, and winced when his assailant's fist caught Kakashi's shoulder, throwing him back roughly.

Unfortunately for him, the pug couldn't intervene.

Kakashi had ignored his reminder that he'd just gotten out of the hospital, and for some reason had agreed to a spar with a boy clad in the most ridiculous outfit Pakkun had ever had the displeasure of seeing; a jumpsuit with at least a different shade of legwarmers. He figured this was one instance where it paid to be colorblind.

The boy's demeanor was also seriously off-putting as he had a bright smile that Pakkun would swear could sparkle even in complete darkness, and conducted himself in a manner that was so straightforward and exuberant that he had felt like cowering when the boy had introduced himself in a "most youthful" manner.

For some reason Kakashi hadn't been freaked out by the boy's presence and had accepted a spar quickly when it had been offered.

Kakashi must know him from his past, or future, or whatever it was in this case (he was still having trouble wrapping his head around it). Pakkun would have to ask Kakashi about him later because he honestly couldn't see what Kakashi saw in the boy.

His musing was cut short as Kakashi was thrown to the ground right in front of him, sliding on his back a couple of feet before shifting to move out of the way of Gai's punch that did serious damage to the ground where Kakashi's head had just been.

Pakkun took a few leaps further from the fight to avoid getting injured.

* * *

**Kakashi's POV**

He wasn't sure how he'd gotten into this situation, he would blame it on being half-asleep when the offer was made.

One moment he'd been waking up at the memorial stone after he'd fallen asleep talking to his dad, and now he was fighting, and more importantly barely keeping up, with his future self-proclaimed eternal rival.

_Flashback_

_Kakashi had gone to the memorial stone to speak with his father as he had done with his teammates in the future, even though his father's name wasn't on the stone, and had fallen asleep after resting his eyes for a moment while leaning against the object._

_He had been surprised when he woke up to see the curious face of one Maito Gai gazing at him, very close to his face. _

_He'd obviously slept longer than he intended, because while it wasn't that early, the sun was now up. Pakkun must have thought he looked tired and decided not to wake him. _

_After initially allowing instinct to take over and shoving Gai backwards while simultaneously distancing himself from the boy, he'd received a bright smile._

_ "Yosh. Hello Hatake Kakashi, do you remember me, Maito Gai? We attended the Academy together until your graduation. Would you do me the honor of sparring with me?" he asked, obviously ignoring the fact that he'd just woken Kakashi, and that Kakashi's clothing wasn't even close to regular ninja attire._

_He looked over to see Pakkun looking at the boy in slight horror, one eye twitching as he observed Gai. The pug's eyes widened when Gai grinned and the light pretty much shined from the boy's teeth and Kakashi had to fight back an amused grin at the dog's reaction. Of course, he had been almost equally as horrified when he'd initially started dealing with the boy, but had gotten used to it and even started to be grateful for his odd demeanor in the future._

_He turned back to Gai. Sparring was a bad idea, he had met Gai in the Academy, but had quickly graduated without getting to know him at all, dismissing him as an annoyance. _

_He hadn't run into him again until the Chuunin exams when Gai had declared him his youthful rival after Kakashi had thoroughly and seemingly effortlessly beaten him in a fight (he'd actually been a bit worried when Gai had proven to be a very efficient taijutsu user early on, but he'd never mentioned that or let it show)._

_Anyway, sparring wasn't a good idea since it could change things too much, and he wasn't sure how much he needed to work with his stance or movements. _

_He'd tested himself with the training dummy that he'd ended up destroying, and his strikes were much weaker than normal, and he still sometimes misjudged distances. _

_What if Gai managed to defeat him? Would Gai want to have anything to do with him if that happened?_

_Despite all of this, he found himself agreeing. Gai had given his life to help him escape the village and find help after all, and it might even be better if Gai dismissed him. He'd spent so long trying to get Kakashi's attention, only to have Kakashi reject his friendship. _

_While Kakashi had eventually appreciated the challenges Gai would have him participate in, originally he had been very cold to him. _

_Kakashi was actually surprised that Gai had stayed his friend for so long, he wasn't the best person to be friends with, he was sure. _

_He couldn't think on that any further though, as he prepared himself for the fight. He would give this fight everything he had, he definitely owed Gai that much. _

_End Flashback_

The rules for the spar had been taijutsu only, which Gai had chosen.

Pakkun had attempted to get Kakashi to go home instead, but he had refused, instead following Gai to an unused training field.

He would have to make it up to Pakkun later, actually he owed all of his ninken a lot for putting up with everything he was going through.

Now he was cursing the situation he was in, rolling to his hands and knees and throwing himself back as Gai nearly landed a blow hard enough to knock him out.

He was getting better as the fight went on, now forced to correct when he misjudged a distance or allow Gai to injure him.

Even at this point Gai was gifted in taijutsu, and Kakashi could see the beginnings of the green-clad nin's future original style starting to be incorporated, though it was definitely far from perfect at this point in time. Gai probably hadn't even started his own style and was just experimenting with different things.

The thing he'd been worried about initially actually hadn't mattered for this fight. The thing that was working against him, as well as for him, was the fact that he had so much experience in taijutsu, especially Gai's.

For one, while he could predict Gai's movements pretty well, he was somehow over-predicting him, especially at the beginning. This had caused Kakashi to receive a few bruises as he instinctively tried to counter moves Gai didn't end up using. He had also been analyzing at a speed which his body couldn't keep up with.

This had allowed Gai to do things like send him crashing into the ground and give him several bruises.

He brought up his arms in an X to his left, and winced as Gai's foot forced him to slide to his right, before Gai let up and aimed for his right side. He barely dodged, and put several feet between himself and the green-clad ninja.

Not for the first time, he was wishing he had his gloves that held metal plates on the back and thicker material around his wrists that could lessen the force of the blows. His arms would definitely be sore for quite a while after this spar.

Before this he had been allowing Gai to make the first moves, but this time after a few seconds to prepare, he charged him, lunging forward and meeting Gai halfway as he moved forward as well.

From there they exchanged blows for a couple of minutes.

Gai's were quick and had no hesitation, but Kakashi was learning and able to predict Gai's moves a bit better, enough to push the incoming fists away and put the boy off-balance long enough to quickly bring his leg up and swing around to slam it into Gai's chest, sending Gai flying back quite a ways.

He followed through by moving above him, and slamming him into the ground with his other leg.

From there he pushed Gai down with his weight as Gai struggled to get up.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he flinched at the sharp tone with which this was said and threw himself off of Gai, turning to see Minato glaring at him, Inoichi standing behind the blonde with a neutral expression as he observed the two.

"Um, sparring?" Kakashi said, his words coming out as a question in his hesitancy to answer.

"It was a most youthful spar" Gai had risen to his feet, and from his cheerful tone, he probably wasn't aware of how upset Minato was yet, or how much trouble Kakashi was in.

"You just got out of the hospital Kakashi. What possessed you to do something so stupid? Your ninken said you left in the middle of the night. Why wasn't I informed that you were leaving?" the jounin demanded angrily.

Gai had now realized that this was something he shouldn't get involved in and was slowly edging towards the trees so that he could escape Minato's anger when Minato turned his glare on the boy.

"And you. Shouldn't you be at home or with your team?" he commanded.

"I just ran into Kakashi, we were sparring" Gai mumbled.

It was odd for Kakashi to see Gai so subdued, but it seemed an angry jounin was enough to make him cautious.

"Well then, spar's over. Go" Minato ordered him. Gai didn't have to be told twice and rushed off quickly after sending Kakashi an apologetic look.

Kakashi cautiously made his way over to where Minato was after Gai had disappeared from view, "I'm sor-" Minato wouldn't give him a chance to finish his apology.

"Do you have any idea how worried I was? You just got out of the hospital. The rest of the pack had no idea where you were and I find you messing around" Minato fumed.

Kakashi opened his mouth to respond, but flinched back.

It seemed Minato wasn't done. "I can't believe you would do something so selfish. Both Urushi and Uuhei were worried, but they didn't want to betray your trust by telling me and couldn't leave because you wanted them to look after Bull and Shiba. I know you're probably confused and upset about everything that's happened recently, but even so you need to understand that your actions have consequences" Minato continued to yell at him, but he didn't hear the rest.

"_You're actions have consequences" _was echoing in his mind.

Of all people he probably knew that the most. Anything he did in this time could have disastrous results.

For all he knew attempting to befriend his teammates, or even this spar with Gai could have severe ramifications for the future.

"Can we just go?" he asked when he was sure Minato was finished shouting, voice shaking heavily. He'd done enough crying since coming back, and was tired of it.

* * *

**Inoichi's POV**

He had expected Minato's reaction upon finding Kakashi. When he'd shown up at the blonde's apartment early that morning the door had been thrown open before he'd been able to knock, revealing a frantic Minato.

The man had given a short explanation, "Kakashi's gone," before pushing past Inoichi and starting his search.

Inoichi had joined of course, needing to speak with the boy anyway.

There was also the off-chance that Kakashi might do something rash, especially if he'd finally made the realization that the others had about his father's murderer.

The two dogs that could track Kakashi had been left behind to look after the younger two, and so they were forced to track him through his chakra.

The good thing was that while Kakashi seemed to be attempting to suppress it, it wasn't enough that they couldn't sense him and there was sometimes a flare here and there. It was strange, almost as if Kakashi had much less control over his chakra than he'd been reported as having.

Soon they were heading towards a training field close to what he knew was the field where Minato's team normally met and trained.

When they came upon the scene of Kakashi fighting a boy wearing green spandex and orange legwarmers, Inoichi winced as he turned to see Minato's expression.

He could readily tell that the fight wasn't to kill, and was sure Minato had noticed as well, meaning that Kakashi was just sparring and could have returned to Minato's apartment instead of goofing off.

He was right, Minato was even more furious, seeing how Kakashi was perfectly fine.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Minato had demanded when Kakashi had finally brought the spar to an end.

Kakashi had flinched horribly, and immediately ended the spar.

Minato had ignored his feeble excuse, and had then chased off the other boy quickly.

Inoichi barely paid attention to Minato's words as he watched Kakashi's reaction to them. He'd attempted to apologize, but Minato had cut him off. Instead of trying again, Kakashi had seemed to close in on himself.

He was shaking horribly and Inoichi was sure he was fighting to keep from crying, though he might have allowed himself to do so had Inoichi not been there.

Inoichi fought to keep his expression neutral when Kakashi's eyes widened, he started shaking much harder, and his fists had clenched at something Minato said.

Inoichi was sure Kakashi didn't notice that his palms were now bleeding from where his nails had dug into them. He filed that away for future reference. Minato had said something about consequences, and he was curious as to what that meant to the boy.

"Can we just go?" Kakashi had asked quietly.

A glance at Minato told him that the blonde wasn't ready to let things go, but he apparently agreed with Kakashi's request.

Minato moved over and grabbed Kakashi's upper arm, practically dragging the boy after him, and Kakashi wasn't protesting. The pug trotted after them as they made their way back to Minato's apartment.

Once inside, Inoichi glanced between the two before volunteering to make tea so that he could give them some alone time. As he did, he eavesdropped on the conversation they were having.

"You had better have a good reason for running off like that" Minato said angrily.

"Sort of" Kakashi's voice was difficult to hear, he was speaking so quietly.

"And?" Minato demanded.

Inoichi couldn't hear the response, but could guess what had been said as the conversation continued.

"His name isn't even on the stone. Why would you go there and not the cemetery?" There was disbelief in Minato's tone, but there wasn't any of the harshness from earlier.

"Is there even anything there anymore?" Kakashi asked skeptically.

Inoichi had to hide a wince at that, and Minato had fallen silent.

It was true, Sakumo's grave had been vandalized multiple times. In fact there almost hadn't even been a burial. Had Jiraiya and Tsunade of the sannin not been there Sakumo's body likely would have been destroyed by angry ninja and villagers alike that had come to protest placing him near other Hatake from before who had been considered honorable shinobi.

Kakashi had refused to attend the funeral, and hadn't really made any indication that he wanted to visit the man's grave before now.

It seemed Minato was no longer angry, and Inoichi peered around the corner to see him ruffling Kakashi's hair, a grim expression on his face.

"You should have still talked to me Kakashi, and maybe waited until morning. For now go talk to Urushi and Uuhei, they were worried. I'll make breakfast, and then Inoichi-san wants to talk to you. We'll talk about this later" he offered.

Kakashi nodded and Inoichi went back to making tea, hearing Kakashi shift and rise from the couch a moment later.

A minute later he was joined in the kitchen by Minato who slumped in a seat at the table.

"Well, now I feel like a complete ass" he said with a sigh. Inoichi shrugged, "You were worried, and he could have been in danger" he replied levelly.

"But I should have at least let him explain instead of just yelling at him right away. I swear I'm messing up left and right with him lately" he grumbled, "it was much easier when he was little"

Inoichi frowned, "Out of curiosity, why did you take him in? I mean, you were way too young to be looking after him, plus you were a jounin and probably pretty busy with missions" he pointed out.

He'd been pretty confused about that when he'd been reading through Kakashi's files before speaking with the boy.

Minato nodded, "Sakumo was a pretty good friend despite our age difference, and Kakashi didn't really have anywhere else to go. I'd babysat him once or twice before and figured he'd be comfortable with me. Of course, he was originally supposed to go with Jiraiya-sensei, but because of his work he was never in the village. I was only supposed to look after Kakashi until sensei returned and made a decision about where Kakashi should go, but he didn't return for two months and we'd both gotten pretty attached to each other so I volunteered" Minato told him.

Inoichi nodded, he was still not sure why Minato's superiors had allowed it, but obviously they had, and Minato had still been able to go on all of the missions they wanted him to. Had he not then they definitely would have removed Kakashi from his care.

As it was, Kakashi was able to look after himself well enough anyway, so there wasn't a lot that Minato had to do.

* * *

**Kakashi's POV**

Breakfast dragged on for way too long, especially with the future clan head there. Kakashi generally spoke with Minato at meals, but with Inoichi there it was extremely awkward.

He was almost grateful when it was time for him to speak with the man about whatever he wanted. So, after he said goodbye to Minato who was probably just making excuses to leave the two of them, he followed Inoichi to the living room.

After taking a seat on the couch he picked up Shiba, the puppy was becoming much more adventurous and inquisitive, and when he was able he would explore the house. He set the puppy on his lap and started to pet him so that he had something to do with his hands.

He had always had a habit of fidgeting when he was nervous, and both Inoichi and his future daughter had easily been able to put him on edge. Granted, he was usually appeared much calmer in stressful mission situations, but the adrenalin rush he got was the main reason for that. And in general he tried not to put himself in stressful situations when in the village.

"Did Minato-sensei ask you to come?" Kakashi finally broke the silence.

He hated when Inoichi, and Ino too, would just stare at him and try to read him before initiating a conversation. He hadn't experienced this with Inoichi the first time around, but since talking with him it was something that frequently occurred. He was much more used to Ino doing it.

"No," Inoichi replied after a moment, finally shifting back in his seat, "I had some questions of my own for you".

Kakashi frowned at him, now curious. Questions? That sounded like a lot more than just a routine, 'hey you just went through a severe trauma and I want to see how you're doing, session' (and this was a very routine type of situation when dealing with ninja).

Inoichi took the hint that Kakashi wasn't going to respond and took the initiative.

"Do you know these people?" only now did Kakashi notice the bag that didn't belong to him and that he didn't remember Minato owning, sitting next to the chair where Inoichi sat.

He cursed for missing something so obvious. He really was screwing up left and right. Maybe he should start looking back at the Academy basics and work his way up. While usually he would have seen this sort of thing right away, his constant distracted state was making him feel like a rookie.

All of those thoughts were driven from his mind when he saw the drawings that Inoichi had pulled from his bag and handed to him. They weren't perfect, but he was able to tell who they were depicting.

He knew it was useless to try and hide his recognition of the pictures as soon as he laid eyes on them and gave a small start that made Shiba give a short yelp and then look up at him, head cocked to the side questioningly.

The picture of the whiskered boy with the slight yellow drawn through his hair and a wide grin on his face, he set aside.

Lying to this man would probably be completely impossible, but he had to make an effort to at least explain what these were showing. He looked up to see Inoichi carefully scrutinizing him.

"This is my dad right?" he asked, gesturing to the second picture. "Or me?" he added a second later as an afterthought.

Inoichi raised an eyebrow. "Or you? You look that much like your father?" he pried.

Kakashi could tell he hadn't forgotten his initial line of questioning, but the man was apparently curious.

Kakashi just nodded.

Nearly everyone would be surprised to learn that he didn't really have a problem with people seeing his face, but that didn't mean he liked to have his mask off. He'd actually had it custom made into all of the clothing he owned. The material was light and breathable enough that he sometimes slept with it on, especially when he wasn't staying by himself or with just his ninken.

Even the prank he'd played on his students had been more for his own amusement rather than a desire to keep them from seeing what he looked like underneath the piece of cloth. They had never asked to see his face after all, at first trying to make him take it off in some manner, and then asking him what was underneath. It wasn't his fault that they hadn't been more specific.

All that said, being without his mask made him pretty uncomfortable, and he was already uncomfortable enough as it was.

Inoichi didn't try and press further, but just nodded as if Kakashi had confirmed something before reaching over and moving the picture of Naruto back in front of him.

"And this picture?" Inoichi pressed, "he looks a lot like Minato, that's for sure, but these marks are very distinctive don't you think?" he asked.

Kakashi had the distinct feeling answering wrong could end up getting him in a lot of trouble and he quickly tried to weigh his options.

"I think I've seen him once or twice around the village maybe? He's a civilian isn't he? Why's he important?" he asked after a moment of though.

That was the best course of action. The only way Inoichi would know about Naruto was if he'd seen him in Kakashi's mind so he couldn't outright deny seeing the boy. Saying he was a civilian would explain why Inoichi hadn't seen him before since civilians and ninja didn't really interact much except in a business setting.

Inoichi gave a short nod, "That would make sense, though you know him better than that don't you? I mean, he calls you sensei of all things" Kakashi forced himself to keep calm.

Inoichi knew a lot more than he was letting on, but he couldn't afford to get caught now.

"Maybe I met him when I was younger" Kakashi said with a shrug, "but he must not have stuck out, I don't remember that, sorry" he apologized.

He hadn't met Inoichi's eye as he replied, but he rarely ever did when they were meeting, so he doubted that the man would take it as a sign he was lying.

There was quite a bit of silence, and when it had stretched for too long he looked up, and only had time for his eyes to widen in alarm as the last hand sign was finished and the man in front of him slumped before everything went bright white.

* * *

**Obito's POV**

Obito had taken it easy the rest of the day and put ice on his wrist when it had started to swell. He had had a lot of difficulty that night, and the next morning the swelling was worse, but he was forced to ignore that with the news he'd received.

Early the next morning when he'd been trying to get some more sleep after taking a couple of painkillers, there had been a knock at his door. That in itself was extremely unusual, nobody ever visited him. The Uchiha liked to pretend he didn't exist, and had a low tolerance for the presence of non-Uchiha anywhere in the compound. And through the compound was the only way to reach the annex.

When he answered the door he found an Uchiha, a Chuunin by his outfit, standing in front of him and glancing at his surroundings with disguised disdain.

Obito could read the man's expression though, having grown up surrounded by people who constantly masked their emotions.

What was his name again? Daiki or something like that?

He realized he was staring when the Chuunin cleared his throat irritably.

"Oh, sorry, may I help you?" he asked, deciding that he didn't particularly care what the man's name was.

"Hn, Homare-sama (1) has become too ill to continue to lead the clan. The position has been accepted by Uchiha Fugaku and a ceremony will be held in a week's time honoring our new leader. Fugaku-sama has requested that you are neither in nor near the complex for the duration" the man stated bluntly.

Obito frowned, "And what time is this ceremony?" he asked.

He didn't really want to go to anything celebrating that bastard becoming clan head anyway.

"It will begin at midnight on Saturday and will end on Monday at midnight" he stated.

Obito gaped at him. A two-day ceremony? "Two days?" he asked incredulously.

The Chuunin scowled as if he'd asked the stupidest question in the world. "Of course. Our last clan head was elected twenty-five years ago. Fugaku-sama is continuing his goal of leading the Uchiha clan to glory, and as such must address the clan as a whole as well as meet with people individually" he said in a superior tone.

Obito wanted to strangle him for it, it wasn't like nobody had ever met Fugaku before, the prick paraded himself through the Uchiha complex like he was Kami's gift to the clan. Of course Obito didn't see the need for bastard to show off more. He held his tongue though. While he was known for not thinking things through, he wouldn't invite the danger he could bring upon himself by speaking out against one of his clan's idiotic traditions.

He'd learned that the hard way when he'd asked why Uchiha had to focus on fire techniques even if fire clearly wasn't the affinity in a several cases. Of course, he'd asked the question in front of Fugaku and had had to endure hours of lecture as to why it was Uchiha tradition to be excellent fire users. Obito still didn't really understand their logic, if an Uchiha was naturally better with water or lightning then they should train with those primarily, and then fire, but he hadn't asked anymore questions after that. He had only been eight at the time and figured there must be some important adult reason for why that was the case.

It also wouldn't do for him to further alienate himself from the clan.

"What am I supposed to do for two days?" he demanded.

He earned another icy glare, "That is not our concern. We have given you ample time to prepare other lodgings for the duration of the ceremony" he stated. Without giving Obito any time to respond, he turned and left quickly, obviously not wanting to stay around Obito more than he already had.

"Bastard" Obito muttered, closing his door again.

Now he was wide awake, and quickly went through his options. He had enough money for a hotel in the Fire Heights, but that was about it. Unfortunately he still represented his clan, and staying somewhere with that reputation would be a really bad idea.

Asking Minato was out, he didn't want to rely on Minato for anything other than missions. Rin's family was civilian and he couldn't bring clan politics into their home. Kakashi might let him stay, after the way he'd been acting lately, but he still couldn't bring himself to trust the gray-haired boy.

He could only hope that Kakashi was ready to take missions in the next couple of days and that they could get several D-rank, though a C-rank that occurred during the ceremony would be pretty useful.

Deciding he had nothing better to do for now, he grabbed some more ice for his wrist and sat down at the table to wait for the pain to subside a bit more.

* * *

**Ninken POV**

The ambush had been unexpected, and he had quickly been separated from his partner.

He had seen five assailants, and from the scents that had been carried on the wind, he had been able to guess that there had been at least three more of the enemy nearby.

His partner was somewhere to his left, but he was unable to reach him.

Someone had prepared for his presence, the team chasing him seemed to know all about ninken. Sure, they hadn't hidden from him right away, but they had taken most other precautions.

The first thing they had done was force him from the cover of the trees near the village. Sure, fighting in the cover of the trees was common practice for most ninja, but Konoha ninja were especially adept, living in an area surrounded by trees.

The assailants had also released some sort of a chemical weapon that had readily left him unable to smell. His nose burned, and he was at a severe disadvantage because of it, the nose being highly sensitive in canines.

He was forced to his right again when an explosion of unbearably bright light flared on his left along with a sound loud enough that he could only hear muffled sounds in his left ear and a ringing in his right. His vision was spotting, whether from the bright light, or the pain that was making him dizzy, he didn't know. The force of the blast buffeted him to the right, and he faltered in his stride. It wasn't for long and he was barely able to dodge several exploding tags tied to kunai, one of them nicking his right front leg before he was able to throw himself out of the way of the explosion.

His fur was singed pretty badly, and he was covered in scratches, scrapes, and burns by this point.

This was bad, he wasn't a planner. While his partner wasn't much of one either, he was the one who thought up their battle plans.

He was also sure he was about to pass out as well, which would mean death or even capture if they decided they wanted him alive.

Deciding that it was now or never, he made one last attempt to shake his pursuers. Doing as they wanted, he veered to the right, this time turning and heading back towards where he had come from before.

They obviously hadn't been expecting this, and soon he had been able to work his way all the way around until he was under the cover of the trees, past his attackers and heading towards where he'd last sensed Toboe. His muscles were screaming at him, and his breathing was harsh. The cool air burned his throat as he forced himself to continue.

He finally gained sight of Toboe, and unfortunately the other ninja had caught up with him and he was forced to weave through weapons and move amongst the cover of the tress much more than he normally would have. All the while he kept an eye on his partner, and steeled his resolve when he saw that Toboe had been trapped, his arms at his side to prevent any jutsu.

When he was a few feet from his partner he could see that the man was bleeding heavily. He saw a flash of metal and before anyone could react he used his last bit of strength to launch himself in front of Toboe.

He felt multiple weapons pierce his right side before everything went black.

* * *

(1) -Homare means honor, glory, or renown. I figured this was something that the Uchiha clan would find acceptable to name an heir, though I guess Fugaku and Mikoto also named their kid something that meant weasel, so what do I know?

ECDL pointed out that the Uchiha clan seems really critical of Obito, to an unreasonable degree, but the story's going to get into the reason later.

I'm sorry for the long break, I took more classes than I was planning, and had to prepare for graduation, but thankfully I'm done for now.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, please review.


	10. Finding Out

Disclaimer: Naruto isn't mine. If it was then my favorite character wouldn't have been killed. Twice.

Okay, so this chapter has a lot of information in it and it's sort of slow. Thankfully with all of this done the next chapter can have a short time skip, and then a longer one if everything goes how I have it planned right now.

Also, at the end of the chapter I'm introducing my first Omake!

Thank you everyone for your reviews.

And thanks to my beta ECDL.

* * *

_L__ast Time_

_With Kakashi_

_There was quite a bit of silence, and when it had stretched for too long he looked up, and only had time for his eyes to widen in alarm as the last hand sign was finished and the man in front of him slumped before everything went bright white._

_With Obito_

_It also wouldn't do for him to further alienate himself from the clan._

_"What am I supposed to do for two days?" he demanded._

_He earned another icy glare, "That is not our concern. We have given you ample time to prepare other lodgings for the duration of the ceremony" he stated. Without giving Obito any time to respond, he turned and left quickly, obviously not wanting to stay around Obito more than he already had._

_With Ninken_

_When he was a few feet from his partner he could see that the man was bleeding heavily. He saw a flash of metal and before anyone could react he used his last bit of strength to launch himself in front of Toboe._

_He felt multiple weapons pierce his right side before everything went black._

* * *

**Inoichi's POV**

Through his actions Kakashi had confirmed that he knew the blonde boy from the picture, and while he'd said the boy was a civilian, Inoichi had clearly seen the forehead protector in the memory that he'd witnessed. He hadn't put it on in the picture though, leaving it out as a secondary test in case he had missed any scenarios for why Kakashi would have the memories.

He'd doubted that Kakashi would lie to him about the boy's identity anyway, but it seemed he'd been wrong. His hypotheses had all been proven false because Kakashi obviously was trying to hide the existence of whoever this was. Kakashi hadn't experienced these memories when someone else had entered his mind and somehow passed the memories over, they were his own.

Despite the lie, he was still convinced that Kakashi didn't have any ill intentions towards the village, he was just trying to protect someone.

That wasn't enough to prove that Konoha wasn't in danger though, and Inoichi had to be completely sure.

Entering Kakashi's mind was his last ditch effort to protect him. If he didn't find anything this time then he'd have to treat Kakashi as a threat to the village.

Thankfully the silver-haired boy hadn't suspected anything from him, probably thrown enough by the picture that he wasn't too focused.

Had Kakashi tried to stop him, he would have immediately subdued him and taken him to the T&I Department without question. Now though, he had until he stopped the technique to find his answers without fear of Kakashi somehow escaping.

That was how he'd found himself in the most disturbing mindscape he had ever witnessed. The horrors he'd seen in the minds of war veterans and torture victims had never reached this level.

In fact, most of those mindscapes had started to break down before they could reach this level, there hadn't been much present in them when they'd begun treatment.

Even so, the first time he'd entered into one he'd had nightmares for over a month, and even after four years of doing the same, he still felt ill after entering one. The individuals with those mindscapes though, were always sent to him for treatment, either through routine consult, or from mandatory orders of any number of psychological disorders due to combat.

In a few of the cases that Inoichi had personally dealt with, the individual never recovered.

The area around him was dark, with the only light shining from a moon that was much too close to be realistic. Despite this, he could see everything clearly.

The atmosphere around him was a hazy red color, and he marveled at the fact that he could even smell the scent of blood and decay all around him.

The ground was worse. Corpses, unrecognizable due to the damage, were strewn across it with debris from what was probably buildings and rubble mixed in. Most of the bodies were just pieces, constantly moving in the liquid that they were immersed in.

He shuddered at the feel of the liquid that flowed over his feet when he attempted to take a step, pretty sure that this was supposed to be blood as well. He moved his foot back to its original position immediately when he went to step down, feeling something under his feet that was likely some sort of flesh from how it felt.

Swallowing hard, he turned on the spot and observed around him.

As far as the eye could see it was the same, except for one small difference when he turned back to his original position. A figure moved through the mass graveyard, not in any direction in particular, back turned to him. He too seemed to be looking around, which made Inoichi start to have a sinking feeling.

Steeling himself, Inoichi moved towards him.

"Hatake Kakashi?" he asked hesitantly.

The figure whirled around, weapon appearing in hand and poised to attack. Inoichi shifted to a defensive stance, but needn't have bothered.

The person in front of him, who looked like a cross between Kakashi and Sakumo, a man with a mask obscuring his face, lowered the weapon a second later.

Unlike both Kakashi and Sakumo he wore his slightly damaged hitai-ate (1) pulled down over his left eye.

His clothing differed from Kakashi's as well. Unlike the black outfit, and the simple fishnet armor at his ankles, this outfit was some sort of a cross between the standard ANBU uniform and customary jounin attire. The metal plated wrist and arm guards were a lot more like his standard, though they were longer to fit his arms better, but shorter than the standard ANBU gloves. Instead of the standard ANBU vest he also wore the customary jounin vest.

"Yamanaka-sama, why are we here?" Inoichi was right, he thought grimly.

This was actually Kakashi instead of just a mind guard or personality ghost (2).

He'd come across mind guards in a lot of minds, and in the ones he hadn't it didn't mean there wasn't one present. He suspected that only in children's minds would a guard be absent because they were so open and didn't see the need to hide themselves.

A personality ghost was the term that the Yamanaka used to define how a person acted, a mask. Individuals rarely presented fully as themselves, unless they were, once again, children. They put on masks to deal in different situations and sometimes there were faded images of them within the mind that couldn't be interacted with. Inoichi figured, based on the mindscape, that Kakashi would have more than a few, but there weren't any around them right now.

It wasn't rare for him to pull people into their own mindscapes when using this technique, they either showed up or didn't if he didn't focus on preventing it.

What concerned him was that the person in the mindscape always took on the form that they perceived for themselves, and Kakashi's was pretty startling. He supposed it should have been expected something like this however, given the mindscape.

He filed away the use of –sama, for later, Kakashi hadn't even tried to call him that when they had first met. In the mindscape though, a person presented exactly as they were, what his clan called a true person (3), so –sama must have been how Kakashi thought about him.

"What is all this Kakashi?" he asked. He had wanted to look for Kakashi's memories to try and make sense of them, but Kakashi would have to guide him, he couldn't dream of navigating this place since nothing stood out.

If Kakashi didn't cooperate it wouldn't matter, the boy's body had been incapacitated the moment he'd entered the place, and if he wouldn't assist then that would be the final straw, Inoichi would take him in. He really hoped it didn't come to that.

"You shouldn't be seeing this" the visible portion of Kakashi's face showed that he was distressed, both at what he was seeing, and what Inoichi was being allowed to see.

"And what am I seeing?" Inoichi pressed. Kakashi tore his gaze away from a partially destroyed hitai-ate that had floated up from the bloody earth.

"The end" he stated.

"The end" Inoichi repeated, "The end of what?" he asked.

He shuddered as something brushed up against his ankle, forcing him to move to his left.

Kakashi shook his head, "Everything. Can we leave? I don't like it here" he begged.

Only now did Inoichi realize that Kakashi was shaking horribly, which was a positive in his book. It meant Kakashi didn't accept the state of his mind, which was always a good thing for recovery, and his mind proved he would have a long way to go to fix this.

Inoichi shook his head regretfully.

"I'm sorry, but I have to clarify some things first. Is everything here like this?" he wanted out as well, as soon as possible. He was sure he'd have nightmares for quite a while after this.

Kakashi shook his head in reply and pointed to his left.

When Inoichi looked in that direction he could now see that a light shone brightly from an area that had not been present before. It had a few trees, and he could make out a rock, as well as a portion of the marketplace and an apartment. The area was small, but the blood hadn't filtered into it, instead there was a dirt road much like the village streets, and a patch of grass in front of the rock.

Inoichi nodded in thanks, moving towards the scene.

He kept quite a distance from Kakashi, though he didn't think he had anything to fear from the boy at this point since he hadn't immediately been attacked. He was more worried about this place, the mind was highly unpredictable after all, and this one had the potential to be the most dangerous mind he'd come across.

Kakashi followed along at a casual pace.

The short walk was made in silence, and soon Inoichi stood on the dirt path watching Kakashi, back to a few trees.

Kakashi was now looking at the rock, which he now could see was the memorial stone.

While he was occupied, Inoichi did a quick glance around to see what exactly was here, noting the words Ramen Ichiraku draped down above the door written on cloth hangings. There were a few stools there as well. He didn't recognize the specific apartment, but there were a lot of apartments in Konoha with basically the same format. This was likely Kakashi's safe place; these objects would have been something that he had a connection to.

On the one hand it was good that this was here, but on the other, the memorial stone was unmistakably a symbol of death and loss, and to have that included was worrisome.

With those brief observations done, Inoichi turned back to Kakashi who seemed to have forgotten he was there as he sat in front of the stone and gently moved his hands over the names on the object.

He frowned when he examined the stone and moved a few steps closer to get a better look. It appeared completely identical to the one in Konoha in shape from how he remembered it, which was odd considering Kakashi shouldn't have been around the object that much to replicate it so exactly.

After taking another step forward, his eyes widened. He could now read the names on it, and unlike the original these names were different.

"Uchiha Obito?" he read off from the first line, and Kakashi turned rapidly to look at him, visible eye wide. Inoichi frowned, turning to him, "Nohara Rin? All of these people are alive, Kakashi" he stated.

Kakashi said nothing so Inoichi turned back to read more, "Yama-" he was cut off abruptly as the stone blurred. Around him the wind picked up harshly.

"This is none of your concern Yamanaka-sama" he said sharply. His tone and expression gave away how panicked he was feeling and Inoichi's eyes narrowed. He was more confused than he had been upon entering this place.

Hoping to make sense of at least something, he allowed those questions to drop for a moment. From how Kakashi was acting he wouldn't be given much information anyway, he seemed to be able to control his mindscape quite well which would make it hard to find anything.

Inoichi would ask a few more questions, and then he would have to give up on continuing to try and help Kakashi.

"What happened to your eye?" Inoichi finally asked after a bit of silence.

Kakashi fidgeted, "Nothing" he said after a moment.

It was much harder, if not impossible, for most people to lie in their own mindscape and while he was surprised that Kakashi actually could, the boy obviously wasn't skilled enough to hide the fact that he was indeed lying.

This was another negative, unless Kakashi frequently went into his mindscape somehow, the ability to lie here would have had to come from one of his personality ghosts, and overshadowing of the true person was definitely not good.

"Look, lying isn't helping you out here. It's either tell me, or go to torture and interrogation. I guarantee you, I'm much nicer in this setting than that one" he informed the boy sitting in front of him.

"What exactly do you want?" Kakashi demanded finally, looking up to meet his gaze and then standing quickly. Around them the wind picked up further.

"Why do have a picture of Naruto? And why are we even in here?" he growled.

"Naruto?" Inoichi asked, immediately linking it with the blonde boy.

_"Sensei, you're gonna teach me a cool technique right?" he turned to see the image of the whiskered boy tugging on Kakashi's arm._

_Then the image shifted. "But ramen's the best. Why do I have to eat all these foods anyway sensei?" he was holding an apple and pouting. Kakashi in the memory reached out and ruffled his hair, seemingly ignoring the fact that it earned him a scowl._

"_Run, I can handle this" this Naruto was much older, the baby fat from the earlier images having faded. _

_He was no longer wearing the bright orange that Inoichi had seen, but now wearing a black sweatshirt with dark orange down the sides, a red cloak covered it, and the boy's eyes were showing an unnatural fire-orange with almost a plus symbol instead of his regular blue pupils. The marks on his cheeks were a bit more pronounced now, and he had teeth sharper than most Inuzuka that Inoichi had come across. _

_The Kakashi in the memory had moved towards the blonde boy, but a growl forced him to stop. _

_"It won't do us any good if you die too. Now go" he gave one last warning before turning and racing in the opposite direction towards what Inoichi could see was a lot of death and destruction, with what he guessed must be the enemy making its way towards them._

These images flashed abruptly through the area around them.

"Who are you?" Inoichi demanded when the memory finished.

He forced a bit more chakra into his technique and focused, throwing the man back into the stone and holding him in place tightly. This was Kakashi's mindscape, he was sure, and most of the memories from when he'd entered Kakashi's mind the time before had belonged to the boy.

However, there was no way that a ten-year-old would have ever been in any position to witness these things, and definitely not this ten-year-old from what his file indicated. Plus Inoichi had never seen the blonde boy before, but he seemed to be a very prominent figure in this individual's memories, enough that there would be a record in Kakashi's file about him had Kakashi truly ever met him, especially considering he was a ninja.

Obviously Inoichi's first theory had been partially correct and the man in front of him had somehow passed his memories into Kakashi, and was likely a presence that was biding his time in order to use Kakashi for some purpose, most likely to harm Konoha in some way.

Despite how rough he had thrown the man, Inoichi made sure not to cause any damage around them as he questioned this individual. If the real Kakashi was still around here somewhere then Inoichi could cause him serious harm if he affected anything.

"Hatake Kakashi," the man ground out in response, struggling against the force holding him in place.

Inoichi added more pressure. "Who are you?" Inoichi snarled again.

"Hatake Kakashi" the man said back firmly.

Inoichi's eyes narrowed and he moved forward. While most people could actually control their mindscapes to an extent, Inoichi and his clan members were able to manipulate pretty much anything that happened to their victims and override any control those individuals held within their own mind, and it was working against the invader as well.

With that in mind he pushed up the man's forehead protector when he reached his captive. Immediately everything went hazy before going black.

* * *

**Tsume's POV**

She had just checked on the animals in the clinic, fed them and the clan dogs, and then had opened up the door to the store for the day when an ANBU burst in.

"What happened?" she demanded immediately, ignoring any pleasantries. It wasn't as if ANBU used them anyway and the man reeked of blood and her father's scent.

He had a porcelain boar mask with black spiky hair sticking up. The man also wore the standard ANBU vest and attire, black clothing with a gray flak jacket, metal arm guards and gloves, and sandals with spikes on the bottom. Unlike most ANBU, this one did not carry a sword strapped to his back (4).

"A border ambush. Your father is in the hospital" he stated monotonously, giving as short a report as possible to relay the information.

"And Isamaru (5)?" she asked urgently. Usually the ninken would be brought to her if he was unable to stay with her father.

"The dog was killed" the ANBU told her.

This time he allowed some condescension to seep into his voice at the word dog that made her bristle.

Kuromaru, who had been lying by the counter, shot to his feet.

"What happened?" her ninken demanded.

Kuromaru hadn't been close with Isamaru, but the Inuzuka ninken considered each other pack all the same, and Isamaru was definitely a ninken to respect after all he'd done in his missions.

His involvement in a high-ranked mission had been the reason that several men had made it back to Konoha. The Hokage himself had given him an award for it, something that had been unheard of when it came to ninken.

"I am uncertain" the ANBU replied dismissively without even turning to him, making Kuromaru bare his teeth at the disrespect. He knew he couldn't do anything to the man though, and refrained from attacking.

"Your father requests your presence" he told Tsume, gave a short bow, and quickly left. Kuromaru growled.

"Had Isamaru been human he would know more" he shook his head in irritation before turning to Tsume.

"I will locate Hige to take over the store. Go see your father" he told her, making his way out the door the ANBU had left open upon his exit before she could respond.

Shaking her head to clear it, she immediately locked the door and took off towards the hospital to do as Kuromaru had ordered.

* * *

**Inoichi's POV**

He winced as he woke.

The familiar feel of being outside his body immediately presented itself, and what had occurred rushed back to him.

"So you're an Uchiha?" Inoichi said, tone more of a statement than a question, looking at where the imposter Kakashi sat, still in front of the memorial stone, but now facing him, eye once again covered.

The stone was much further away than previous, and he definitely couldn't read the names now. It seemed the mindscape had adjusted according to this man's wishes.

He was being held tightly against one of the trees in the mindscape with some sort of restraints. A check for his chakra told him that he wouldn't be able to use any.

There was no doubt in his mind that this imposter had to be an Uchiha, the sharingan as well as the control over the mind was something only found in the sharingan users and his own clan, at least within Konoha.

The chances were slim to none that this man was from some foreign village with similar techniques and had entered Kakashi's mind when he'd been on a mission, the last time he'd exited the village being about two years ago.

"No. I've already told you, my name is Hatake Kakashi. This eye came about through unfortunate circumstances" he stated testily.

Inoichi frowned, the man was looking him over expertly, trying to read him. If he wasn't careful he wouldn't make it out of Kakashi's mind alive.

"Then how are you able to manipulate this place with a sharingan?" Inoichi demanded.

Kakashi frowned at him, "I'm not. This is my mind, and it's probably much like the reason we're both breathing in here, even though it's completely unnecessary, at least for you since your mind isn't in your body. I'm used to using my sharingan to copy techniques and cast genjutsu, so my mind's probably allowing me to do the latter, even though it's not really a genjutsu, just a bit more control over my mind. Like when you're dreaming and you're flying or something, and then you realize it's a dream and suddenly can't anymore because your mind knows that it's not logically possible" he explained.

Inoichi's eyes narrowed, that was a very simple explanation for something that was highly complex, and only someone with experience in the mind arts would have even been able to easily make that connection.

"Those memories then, if you're Kakashi you're too young to have them. Your file states that your C-rank missions have never reached that level of danger" he reasoned, referring to the last memory of Naruto that they'd seen.

The man was silent for a moment before giving a sigh and shaking his head, "That wasn't a mission Yamanaka-sama. That was the Fourth Shinobi War" he stated, voice sounding much more tired and defeated than he'd sounded since Inoichi had entered.

Inoichi kept his face impassive.

"The Fourth Shinobi War. Are you telling me you're from the future?" he asked skeptically.

The man nodded, "From about twenty years" he clarified, "I didn't want anyone to find out, well, I told my ninken, but other than that I figured people would think I was insane or an imposter, like you do. I figured somebody would find out everything soon since I'm acting so out of character, and I wouldn't have told you anything, but we're in my mind and if I don't explain things there's a really high chance you'll get me locked up and tortured. Not that there's still not the chance of that happening now," he added a moment later.

Inoichi was still unconvinced, but took another glance around them, seeing the destruction around them and finally looking back at the stone which he still was unable to read.

"So, you're here in the past to change things and save the future from something horrible that happens then?" he asked, humoring the man for a moment.

What he received in response however, made him start to doubt his initial impression. The one visible eye was glaring at him and the man moved to his feet, turning back to the memorial stone.

"To change things? Save the future? I shouldn't be here" he whipped back around to face Inoichi.

"I'm supposed to be dead. I was the only person still left, well, aside from him but he sacrificed himself to send me here. It should have been him. It was my fault, but he sent me back and expects me to somehow have a second chance" he shouted, shifting in agitation.

Inoichi opened his mouth to respond but Kakashi's voice grew louder.

"Sensei, Rin, Kushina-nee-chan, Gai, they're all alive now. Everyone's worried about me, when I'm the reason they're all dead. You're helping me, when I'm the reason you die, your teammates and family too but I can't say anything to anybody, because it might change things and if possible screw things up even more. I hate this, everything's already worse. I'm taking up Minato-sensei's time. I nearly made things worse with Obito. My ninken are trying everything they can to help, but they can't understand that sometimes when I look at them, I see them being torn to pieces along with everyone else. On top of that I find out that my father, whose death I'd already spent years coming to terms with, was actually implemented by a fellow Konoha ninja. The ninja around the village, I know them, but I can't talk to them like I did before because we either haven't met, or they think I'm a complete ass. But I can't change too suddenly either, because then everyone will think something's wrong or that I'm an imposter. I have no idea what to say most of the time. I have to think over everything before I open my mouth so that I don't make a mistake. I wanted to see everyone again, but not like this" he fell to his knees, landing in a puddle of the red liquid that had previously been absent.

Only now did Inoichi see that behind the man the memorial stone was starting to crumble, the tree surrounding him, as well as the one he was tied to, were starting to wilt, and the two buildings next to him had large cracks running down the side as they started to collapse. The scenery was changing to match its surroundings.

"I can't do anything about it though," the silver-haired man continued, "I'd upset people too much, even though it be easier for all of us if I weren't here" Inoichi felt the illusionary bonds fall away, and quickly moved over to him.

There was no doubt in his mind that this had to be Hatake Kakashi. His emotions were the only thing that could warp this area so obviously, and the deterioration around them was due to changes in his current emotional state.

He should have realized it was true when Kakashi made the memorial stone and village section appear but he'd been too shocked by the presence of the strange memories to do so.

"Stop it" Inoichi ordered sharply, hoping to shock Kakashi back into awareness. He winced as one of the trees fell into the liquid, splashing him with the dark red substance, even as he grabbed onto Kakashi's arm, forcing his chakra into the man.

Within a second he'd pulled both of them out of the inner world.

As soon as he woke he realized he was panting heavily, his heart rate increasing to an unsafe degree as he tried to calm himself.

He had just made a rookie mistake, one he'd sworn never to make.

Speaking with people in their mind was alright, but upsetting them inside of it was extremely dangerous for their mental state. The mindscape reacted according to emotions at that particular moment, the person affected wasn't able to regulate their emotions as easily, and if that individual's mental state had already deteriorated the results could be disastrous.

He'd seen something like this occur twice before.

Two traitors had been apprehended in the village and after their interrogation it had been found that both of them had too much information to be allowed to live. The ninja had been popular among civilians in the village though, and they had fought to keep the two from being executed. Because the information was too sensitive, the civilian council had ordered his father to destroy their minds when the trial had continued long enough.

Inoichi had been present for both times, and it had been the only time that he'd seen his father reluctant to punish a traitor.

Thankfully the Hokage had been apprised of the situation and had deemed it inhumane so that the practice would never be repeated.

When Inoichi became fully aware he realized that there was a weight of something standing on his chest and hot breath against his face.

He was lying on his back on the floor. The ninken must have gotten angry and pulled him off the chair.

His eyes snapped open to see the bared white teeth and furious eyes of Kakashi's largest ninken, a growl issued from its throat when it saw he was awake and its teeth snapped threateningly.

"You better have a good explanation for this Yamanaka" the pug growled from off to his right. He carefully turned to see the pug nudging Kakashi in an attempt to wake him.

Kakashi was also lying down now, but on the couch instead of the floor. The ninken probably had moved him so that he would be more comfortable until they could do something to wake him up.

Without wasting any time, he shoved Uuhei off, sending some raw chakra through his hands and making the dog yelp as it was lightly burned.

Soon he was trying to shake Kakashi awake, adding a bit of chakra to stimulate his brain.

There was a snarl from Uuhei and he charged, but thankfully Pakkun gave a sharp, "Stand down", making the greyhound freeze.

Obviously the pug was good at reading the situation and could see that Inoichi wasn't trying to harm Kakashi. Uuhei still watched Inoichi warily, tensed and ready to spring at him the instant Pakkun gave the command.

* * *

**Kakashi's POV**

When he woke it was to Inoichi's relieved expression.

Pakkun immediately tried to push the man aside.

"Are you alright pup?" he asked urgently.

Kakashi couldn't really remember too much of what had happened, it was all blurry. There were flashes of death and decay, a few memories of Naruto, and finally a lot of pain. He immediately knew that Inoichi had discovered his secret though, and he tried to sit up.

"Careful" Inoichi helped him as he immediately felt dizziness wash over him.

"Pup" Pakkun whimpered, moving to sit on his lap and bracing his paws on Kakashi's chest as he looked at him in concern.

Behind him Uuhei's ears drooped slightly and his eyes shone with worry as well.

"I'm fine. My head's killing me though" he said, bringing his hand up to hold against his forehead. Inoichi pushed his hand aside and forced him to meet his gaze.

"I'm going to need to ask you some basic questions. Alright?" he asked.

Kakashi frowned but nodded warily.

These had nothing to do with his mindscape, he found. They were routine questions, asked after any sort of head injury. He'd been given this test several times in his ninja career.

Inoichi nodded in satisfaction when he finished the test before moving back to his seat.

"You should get some rest, however I'm going to tell you everything that happened when we were in there before I let you. I suspect you remember some, if not most of what happened in there, but I'm sure your missing something. I expect you to fill in some information about what I found when I'm done" his tone left no room for argument.

Kakashi sighed, resigning himself to the interrogation that was sure to follow as Inoichi started to explain what had occurred.

* * *

**Rin's POV**

Since training had been cancelled for at least today, Rin had been practicing with her kunai and shuriken skills, hoping to see some improvement.

She wasn't too happy with how she had done. Her skills were below average in weaponry.

Kakashi's skills had drastically improved after graduation, enough that he as a chuunin.

Even Obito seemed to have made progress in the short time after becoming a genin. At this rate she had felt there would come a time when she would be holding them back, especially once their team started taking higher ranked missions.

This was what she did whenever training had been canceled, well, this and taijutsu training.

Regrettably she had been focused on her studies and training in the Academy and hadn't made any friends that way. She had been on good terms with a few of the students, but those students had never taken their ninja training seriously.

They had been from civilian families as just as she was, but had only wanted to become ninja because they felt it would be cool. After failing repeatedly, they had deemed it too difficult and had either dropped out or failed.

She would have liked to approach the children from ninja clans, but they had always seemed unapproachable. They had established friendships with others in the class early on, or before they had even entered the Academy. Most of them didn't seem to even pay the civilian children much mind.

Now that she was on a team she'd hoped that her teammates would spar with her since teammates were supposed to train together.

Minato seemed to be focusing on teamwork more than basic skills, always getting them D-rank missions instead of conducting spars. She could see why though, with how her teammates had treated one another.

She had then hoped that her teammates might want to spar after missions.

Unfortunately Kakashi had initially been extremely cold to both her and Obito when they'd first joined. She hadn't wanted to upset him too much by asking.

And she'd made Obito angry, much to her surprise, when she'd asked him. He'd told her that he trained on his own, that he needed to master the Uchiha style and that he didn't need her help.

As far as Kakashi was concerned at this point in time, she figured he would accept if she asked, but since training was cancelled for his recovery she couldn't very well do that now.

Minato was out for much the same reason, he was looking after her silver-haired teammate, and she wasn't comfortable enough on the team yet to ask him for extra training outside of their assigned time.

Feeling that her training was done for the day, she made her way back home to get a shower.

When she arrived however, she was surprised to see her mother clearing the kitchen table of two plates and two glasses.

Her mother's name was Yuki and she was in her mid-thirties.

The two didn't look much alike. Rin had a very similar facial structure, but instead of brown hair and brown eyes her mother's hair was black and her eyes were an odd blue, almost violet color.

Rin looked more like her father, and the purple triangles on her cheeks were in remembrance of his clan. He hadn't been a ninja, but the rest of his family had been.

Unfortunately all of them had died, either of old age, or on missions so she had never gotten to speak with any of them about her father.

"Oh Rin, you're home" her mother greeted when she spotted her, looking a bit nervous.

"Did you have company?" Rin asked curiously. Rin had always been a bit worried about her mother being too lonely. She hadn't interacted with many people since Rin's father had passed away, even the parents of other Academy students when they'd have parent's days.

Her mother hesitated, "Well, yes" she said, before shaking her head.

"I suppose you're going to find out eventually. How about you take a seat and we can talk" she offered, setting the dishes on the counter and then moving to take a seat as well.

Rin frowned, her mother was rarely this nervous and Rin hoped it wasn't anything serious. She reluctantly took a seat as well.

After a bit of hesitation, her mother started to explain.

"You have to understand sweetheart, I loved your father, and I still do. I would never want you to think I was replacing him, but I met someone in the village a while ago and we've been seeing each other. He's a trader. A wonderful man named Mandou Shin" she explained.

Rin didn't answer for a moment before she smiled, completely relieved, and happy for her mother.

"That's great. Can I meet him?" she asked eagerly.

Her mother looked startled, "You're really okay with this honey?" she questioned worriedly.

Rin nodded firmly, "Of course I am, and I would never think you were trying to replace Dad. He died a long time ago. I only remember him a little, but he would definitely want you to be happy" she replied confidently.

Her father had worked in construction and had died in an accident when she'd been about three.

She didn't remember too much about him, but she knew without a shadow of a doubt that he had loved both of them.

A strange expression crossed her mother's features and Rin almost thought she'd said something wrong before her mother smiled and shook her head affectionately, "I keep forgetting that you're growing up. Speaking of which, if I remember correctly someone's turning ten next month" she said teasingly.

Rin smiled and the discussion changed to her birthday plans.

* * *

**Omake (Alternate mindscape)**

As soon as Inoichi was able to view everything in the mindscape he promptly cancelled the technique.

Waking up, he shifted to sit up, feeling dizzy for some strange reason.

Across from him Kakashi had woken up as well. "So, did you get the information you needed?" he asked.

Obviously he'd been pulled into the mindscape as well and had seen what Inoichi had witnessed if his smug expression was anything to go by.

At that point the door to the house opened, Minato had returned.

"Oh, sorry, are you still…" he trailed off, staring at Inoichi. "What?" Inoichi asked, confused at his fellow jounin's expression.

Across from him Kakashi snorted. "Your nose is bleeding" he told him, taking some sort of sadistic glee in embarrassing him.

"Um, I actually think we're done here. I need to go" Inoichi said, rising from the couch.

"Are you sure you're okay Inoichi?" Minato asked, looking at him in concern.

"Yeah, do you have any idea what might have caused that?" Kakashi asked, the sheer innocence in his voice told Inoichi that it was definitely feigned.

He didn't rise to the bait, "I'm sure I'm fine. I should probably just go lie down" he replied to Minato's question and quickly made his escape from the house, wiping away the blood as best he could.

If his fiancé ever found out about what he'd seen, regardless of the fact that it wasn't his fault, she would brutally murder him. Honestly though, who would have ever expected that the mindscape of a ten-year-old boy was pretty much a giant orgy with a banner actually declaring it Icha Icha Paradise?

* * *

Thanks for taking the time to read. As always I'd be grateful if you'd take the time to review.

(1) I rarely use Japanese in my stories unless it's a technique, a title like Hokage, or a frequently used term like katana. I figured hitai-ate, or forehead protector, was alright though.

(2) A personality ghost is the Yamanaka clan term for "the persona," which is part of a theory by Carl Jung that people wear masks to hide their true selves from the outside world in order to interact with others in society.

(3) A true person is the Yamanaka clan term for "the self," which is another part of the same theory by Carl Jung. It's pretty self-explanatory, every aspect of a personality and exactly how a person is without hiding anything.

(4) This isn't the same ANBU from the anime or manga, from how I see it ANBU are often replaced since they have such dangerous jobs and so this one likely died and was eventually replaced by the other ANBU.

(5) Isamaru means full of courage, it's also apparently a playing card in the game Magic: The Gathering which I don't have the attention span to play.


End file.
